A thriving FPL feels it deserves more… of your money

Al’s Loupe

A thriving FPL feels it deserves more… of your money

By Alvaro F. Fernandez
alfernandez@the-beach.net

Ten percent of Floridians who work are currently unemployed. Those are the official numbers; the reality is that the figure is probably much higher. But even the lucky person with a job has probably experienced a slash in salary or even accepted furloughs (work days not paid). And as we continue to hear, we are in the worst economic situation since the days of the Great Depression.

What have we learned? The answer becomes clearer daily: The rich get richer, assure themselves of that, and, in fact, feel it is their right to do so… at our expense.

Over the past few weeks I have written about Washington’s bailout of bankers (many who got us in the mess we’re in) and insurance giants, as well as the shenanigans we are experiencing locally — government telling us (and the lowest paid workers within their own ranks) to tighten our belts while top-tier employees and the leadership enrich themselves with extra juicy pay raises. The latest reality slap is how Florida Power and Light (FPL), Florida’s biggest utility company, is asking for a rate hike.

Yes, in the middle of the worst economic crisis of our lifetime, FPL wants to raise its rates by 30 percent in order to hike the base price of electricity by $1.3 billion. OK, I say, FPL offers pretty good service. Maybe there is a need for an injection of capital…

Let me clarify that FPL is a monopoly. Their rates have to be approved by Florida’s Public Service Commission (PSC). So politics is involved in this new episode of how our utility bills keep going up.

More of our dollars, for what?

Our resident utility monopoly earned $108 million in the first quarter of 2008. With the situation being what it is I thought they may have tanked in 2009… Not really. The first quarter of 2009 saw FPL with net income earnings of $127 million. I dug a little deeper and found out that FPL is also poised to receive $10 billion in stimulus money from the U.S. Dept. of Energy at very favorable rates (and some as non-repayable matching grants).

So I scratched my hairless head and started reading newspapers from around the state. What I found boiled my blood. Then again, it’s been boiling for years. Seems that our system of acceptable (or should we call it institutional) corruption continues to gather strength, steamrolling the many in its path.

Here’s some of what I learned:

• Reports reveal that FPL has budgeted $40.5 million for 42 executive salary and benefits packages. As The Miami Herald reported, “The pay and benefits for those 42 executives would go up by $1 million.”

• In the same Miami Herald report we learned that FPL CEO Armando Olivera, whose annual salary package is $3.6 million, was asked by a PSC commissioner if FPL executives would forego a pay raise this year. Olivera answered dryly: “NO.”

• Olivera, who lives in Miami, travels to and from work in Juno Beach (Palm Beach County) via company helicopter.

• About 440 FPL employees earn more than $165,000 annually.

But most clearly depicting that some of these people feel entitled to benefit from our system of institutional corruption was that FPL will use part of this rate increase to pay for a new $31 million corporate jet to replace the 10-year-old one they have in its three aircraft fleet.

Lobbyists, lobbyists everywhere

The Sun Sentinel reported that “FPL’s relationship with the Public Service Commission … has come under investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.” In the same article, The Sentinel reported that FPL had spent $3.7 million on lobbyists in Tallahassee (Florida’s capital) from 2006 to March of this year. Some of the lobbyists included familiar names like former U.S. Senator Connie Mack and Brian Ballard, an associate of Governor Charlie Crist.

Since 1996, it was reported, FPL gave more than $2.2 million to the Republican Party of Florida and $1.2 million to the Democrats. In 2008, in fact, FPL was the second largest donor to the Republican Party in the state.

The question not being asked: If you (FPL) are a monopoly, why spend so much money greasing the wheel in Tallahassee?

You know, this country may be mired in its worst economic crisis in decades. That I understand; I believe most common folks also get it. What boggles the mind, though, is that not enough people have come to the realization, yet, that the biggest disaster looming is a moral one.