Last Updated on 5/30/2012

Published on 2/20/2012

GEORGETOWN S.C. — By its own admission, the City of Georgetown’s Electric Department charges higher rates to businesses than is charged by other electric companies across the state raising the question: Does the city actually need its own electric department?
Businesses and residents outside the city limits receive electricity from other companies such as Santee Cooper and Santee Electric Cooperative.
The City of Georgetown purchases electricity from Santee Cooper and resells that power within the municipality.
A study conducted by the Georgetown Times published last week indicated the city has been charging commercial customers, on average, about 48 percent higher rates than Santee Cooper has been charging commercial customers the past three years.
While not denying there is a noticeable difference in the rates charged by the city and Santee Cooper, Alan Loveless, head of the city’s electric department, says he does not believe the gap is that wide.
An electric rate study commissioned by the city late last year shows commercial customers in the city — depending on the amount of electricity used and time of year — pay anywhere from ten percent to 53 percent more than Santee Cooper.
In an unscientific poll conducted last week on the Georgetown Times Website,
283 (66.5 percent) of the participants said the city does not need an electric department while 142 (33.5 percent) said the department is needed.
Mayor Jack Scoville said the electric department is a valuable part of the city for many reasons. One, he said, it helps with the general fund.
Scoville said an average of $1.4 million annually feeds from the electric department to the general fund which reduces the need for tax increases.
“Profits not being sent to outside interests. All revenue stays in Georgetown and is available for public projects,” the mayor said.
He also said having “local control” of a utility is “always better” because council can “control rates, how much revenue is generated and what funds are expended for.” 
City Councilman Paige Sawyer said there are other benefits to those in the city.
“By having its own utility department, the city has a faster response time to emergencies and outages,” Sawyer said, adding after Hurricane Hugo in 1989 — and at other times — when power was knocked out, the service was restored much faster because the city workers had a much smaller area to cover than their counterparts from other companies.
Sawyer also noted the city’s rates, in some cases, are lower than Santee Electric and other cooperatives.
Councilman Clarence Smalls says having another revenue source for the city, besides taxes, is a good thing.
“That is the heart of the city’s budget. What do we have that can support this town without the electric department? It plays a major role in helping the city survive,” Smalls said.
Some local business owners feel the city would survive just fine without an electric department, preferring residents and businesses be allowed to purchase power directly from an electricity producer.
Jim Moody, owner of Moody’s Mechanical, said if all the expenses of the department were deducted from what is collected, the department would be a losing business.
He said the city should sell the department to a cooperative so there would be no jobs lost and the workers would probably make more with better benefits.
Rhonda Morris, owner of Morsels on Front Street, said the city needs to find another way, besides the electric department, to balance the budget.
“They can find ways to be more efficient. It could be done a different way and not on the backs of people who cannot afford it,” she said.
She said if the electric department no longer existed, electric rates would be lower which would attract new businesses which would make up for the number of jobs that would be lost.

By Scott Harper
sharper@gtowntimes.com