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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- The state's Committee of Consumer Services -- the agency that looks after the interests of consumers, farmers and small businesses in utility rate cases -- appears to have been hit with a steep budget cut in the last hours of the 2004 legislative session.
Utah Department of Commerce analysts have found language in a supplemental appropriations bill that eliminates about $300,000 from the agency's $1.3 million budget.
"It looks like we may have gotten clobbered in the dark of the night," said Dee Jay Hammon, the committee's chairman. "No one saw this one coming."
It is unclear who added the language cutting the committee's budget.
The bill takes $150,000 from the committee's administrative budget and another $150,000 from the fund annually allocated for it to hire professional consultants.
The $300,000 would go to the Utah Division of Public Utilities, which the Legislature wants to study how Public Service Commission decisions affect businesses.
Irene Rees, director of the division, said she knew nothing of the financial move by the Legislature or of the study.
Roger Ball, Consumer Services Committee director, said Wednesday that he is trying to track down exactly what happened during the last few hours of the session.
Amanda Covington, spokeswoman for Gov. Olene Walker, said there is language in one version of the bill that takes away some of the committee's funding, "but we haven't seen the final version of the bill yet, so we're not sure exactly what it says."
The Committee of Consumer Services in recent years has fended off several attacks by the state's largest utilities, their largest business customers and their allies in the Legislature.
In 2000, lawmakers passed a bill drafted by Questar Corp. and sponsored by Rep. David Ure, R-Kamas, to make it easier for utilities to raise their rates and to eliminate the Committee of Consumer Services. The Legislature repealed it shortly before it was to go into effect.
(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
