PEC writes off $250,000 a month in uncollectables

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Editor's Note: Thanks to Milton Hawkins of the pec4u watchdog group for forwarding this story, and to Highland Lakes Newspapers for sharing. We're picking up other matters of concern in cross-watchdog discussion with respect to promised reforms from current reform board members that look like they are being delayed or shunted aside. We'll catch up on that sooner than later.

By Ashleigh Whaley
Highland Lakes Newspapers|Burnet Bulletin

Read the whole story here.

The Pedernales Electric Cooperative is losing an average of nearly $250,000 per month in write-offs for uncollectable accounts, leading board members to acknowledge needed improvements Monday as they met in Johnson City.

The PEC currently requires no deposit when new members sign up for services and does not perform a credit check to determine the reliability of the new members, leading to a loss of nearly $3 million in the last 12 months.

“Write-offs have to do with customers who have disconnected, either moved away from the system or have been disconnected for non-payment,” said Mike Vollmer, PEC’s chief financial officer. “And after a certain process of solicitation and a certain amount of time involved, those accounts are determined to be truly uncollectable and those are written off the system.”

Vollmer said he believes the PEC could improve its policy on uncollectable accounts and board president Larry Landaker (of Wimberley), who said he was “surprised the PEC doesn’t have deposits,” agreed.

“All the amounts you’ll see earlier in the agenda, that have been noted by members, is something we need to be more aware of,” Vollmer said. “On an annual basis, if you add that up, all of those final bill write-offs divided by the total amount of billings, we’re probably 4/10ths of 1 percent or less than half of one percent. But when you look at that amount across the country, it’s an interesting comparison in that other cooperatives are typically lower than us. Some are down around 2/10ths of 1 percent. If you ask me, we can improve on that.”