Cleco customers will see a rate increase next month of $5.35, which will jump to $13.13 in October. Spokesperson Fran Phoenix says while she understands the rise may come as a shock, it’s necessary.
“Unlike other businesses,” she says, “when company expenses fluctuate, Cleco can’t arbitrarily just change prices and pass the change to the customer.”
The last price increase occurred in 2021, Phoenix says, “and since that time, inflation, infrastructure improvement costs and changes in the wholesale market have contributed for the need for an adjustment.”
Phoenix adds that Cleco is trying to soften the blow with a low rise in the summer months, then raising prices again in months when energy usage is low in addition to lowering reconnect and late fees.
Public Service Commissioner Davante Lewis, who voted against the price raise, says Cleco has ulterior motives. For instance, he says, the company recently lost a contract selling power to another Louisiana power company, “and what Cleco has done now is shifted that lost revenue onto their commercial and residential ratepayers.”
Additionally, Lewis thinks the lower fees are long overdue, since he believes Cleco has some of the worst fees in the nation. He says the way Cleco is framing the price jump is misleading at best and predatory at worst.
“I think caging this around ‘our costs have gone up’— no, it is that their parent company is selling and they needed to make some more money for their shareholders and especially the new company that’s acquiring them,” he explains.
He also says that Cleco’s repeated point that they have some of the lowest rates nationwide doesn’t matter because Louisianians use more energy than any other state nationwide.
The price increase passed the Louisiana Public Service Commission last week on a 4-1 vote and will go into effect on July 1st.
