The OPPD board will vote Thursday on a plan that would raise the service charge to $30 by 2019 and reduce the usage charge by 22 percent.If the board approves the rate restructuring plan on Thursday, the service charge will be $15 next year. It’ll increase to $30 in 2019.
During a meeting last week with Omaha Together One Community, OPPD president and CEO Tim Burke said the utility is focused on how to help low-income customers if the rate increase passes.
"There’s a strong message we’ve heard throughout this whole process, not only from our board, but from our market research and from our open houses, which is the reason why we do them, and the hardest and strongest message was how do you mitigate or reduce the impact to low-use, low-income customers?"
If the plan is approved on Thursday, a Low-Use/Low-Income Customer Plan will be implemented. Qualified customers would have a credit applied to their account through 2020.
A rally was held outside OPPD headquarters in downtown Omaha Tuesday morning to protest the rate restructuring plan. Several community groups have expressed concern about the impact the rate increase could have on some customers.