WV consumer advocate budget shows taxpayer burden growing from rate hike requests

Fowler reported a $500 power bill for a one-bedroom trailer, and that he’s living paycheck to paycheck while working 70 hours a week and not being to afford his medication this month.

“I [am] just scraping by,� Fowler wrote.

But mounting utility rate cases driven by a growing number of surcharges and increasingly volatile fuel costs aren’t just a ratepayer liability. They're a taxpayer liability, too.

That reality was clear throughout a budget presentation before West Virginia lawmakers Wednesday for the state agency charged with representing residential ratepayers in PSC cases — the PSC’s Consumer Advocate Division.

Consumer Advocate Division Director Robert Williams showed the Senate Finance Committee his agency’s budget has increased 37% since 2015, driven in part by increasing consulting and expert expenses incurred in challenging utility rate hike requests.

And Williams asked the committee to approve a bigger budget for the Consumer Advocate Division than what Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s office has signed off on, saying more support is required for his unit’s consulting and expert testimony-gathering efforts to stay afloat amid what he called a “flood, really, of major rate increases coming in.�

The Consumer Advocate Division relies in part on retained experts and consultants to perform audits, make recommendations and present testimony on complex consumer-impacting issues in rate cases, often with tens of millions of dollars on the line for ratepayers and investor-owned utilities.

Retaining consultants and experts represents the Consumer Advocate Division’s second-highest category of expenses, Williams told the Senate Finance Committee, which has been hearing budget presentations from agencies across state government to open the 2026 regular legislative session.

Williams told the committee that without an additional $350,000 he has requested for his unit’s 2027 budget to retain and pay experts and consultants, his unit will have to “pull from� its only other major source of funding intended for filling vacant positions.

“So I've held off filling vacant positions until I know I can hire experts for the base rate cases that are coming up,� Williams explained.

Due to the number of major rate cases and other matters filed and litigated in the current budget year, the Consumer Advocate Division already has spent over $525,000 for consultants and experts for the fiscal year as of Sunday, Williams said.

“I have used my budget for experts for the year already,� Williams told the committee.

Williams, who became the division’s director in 2021, said he saw in 2024 it needed more money to hire employees and pay experts for rate case testimony.

The Consumer Advocate Division’s 2024 budget included a $150,000 increase for consulting and expert expenses — from $262,976 to $412,976 — and a $78,000 increase for bumped-up salaries and benefits to fill vacant positions.

The division’s 2026 appropriations of roughly $1.76 million were 38% higher than its 2022 appropriations, and Williams’ unit is now requesting an approximately $2.11 million budget that would represent a 65% increase from those 2022 appropriation level.

But Morrisey’s office has proposed just a $1.77 million budget for the Consumer Advocate Division, 19% lower than what the division has requested. 

Drew Galang, Morrisey's press secretary, said in response to the Consumer Advocate Division's request in an email Thursday evening the governor had to "make tough decisions when submitting a balanced budget" and "is open to revisiting line items with the [L]egislature as they finalize the budget together."

Williams noted that cases are coming in the next few months that could determine the fate of major transmission line projects expected to have vast energy bill and supply implications.

“If I don't have money to hire experts in those cases, I can participate, but I can't constructively address the complex issues that are coming in without some additional outside expertise,� Williams said.

Williams reported that the Consumer Advocate Division has four full-time staff vacancies — two utility analysts, one staff attorney and one executive assistant, with nine budgeted full-time equivalent positions in total.

Having a technical analyst, Williams said, would allow the division to better address technical issues that often arise in cases involving water and wastewater utilities deemed to be distressed or failing, as well as other cases that feature engineering issues.

The Consumer Advocate Division is seeking more expertise to help it better understand issues associated with the economics of use of in-state coal-fired power plants, Williams said, adding that his unit must also be equipped to assess the utility rate effects of new power grid demand from data centers and other large electricity consumers.

The Consumer Advocate Division makes its case

Average Appalachian Power and Wheeling Power electricity residential rates for 1,000 kilowatt-hours per month more than tripled from $55.28 in 2006 to $175.73 in 2025, with a 27% increase in the last four years of that span, according to PSC records.

Average Mountaineer Gas residential rates for roughly 13,000 cubic feet per month climbed 39% from $113 in 2017 to $157.35 in 2025, per PSC records.

The average West Virginia American Water residential monthly rate for 4,500 gallons of water in ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä shot up 159% from $40.27 in 2008 to $104.22 in 2025, according to PSC records.

“It just seems like people are just battered down because they keep getting rate increases, and they come to us and say, ‘Give us some relief’,� Senate Workforce Committee Chair Rollan Roberts, R-Raleigh, said to Williams.

“I don't mean any offense by this, but is what you're doing effective?� Senate Government Organization Committee Chair Robbie Morris, R-Randolph, asked Williams.

Williams argued in the affirmative, pointing in part to the PSC’s January 2024 rejection of $231.8 million in cost recovery sought by Appalachian Power and Wheeling Power in a fuel cost rate hike case.

The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals in November 2024 echoed Consumer Advocate Division witness testimony in the case in a finding that the utilities failed to manage their coal-fired plant operations prudently.

The court sided with the PSC and its Consumer Advocate Division in finding that the companies disregarded trends and market signals impacting their coal procurement, causing them to over-rely on power purchased from regional grid operator PJM Interconnection LLC’s wholesale electricity market rather than generating energy at their own West Virginia plants.

But the court sided with the companies in finding it was “fundamentally unfair� for the PSC to consult and rely on information outside the evidentiary record in the case in arriving at its disallowance calculation. The companies had argued the PSC improperly used coal reports that they submitted to the commission monthly but weren’t made a part of the record.

The court sent the matter back to the PSC for further proceedings to allow the companies to address that evidence as it relates to quantifying fuel costs incurred as the result of what the PSC and court agree were their imprudent coal procurement decisions.

In a separate, pending case in which West Virginia American Water has proposed a 27.9%, $60.5 million water and wastewater revenue increase, the Consumer Advocate Division on Tuesday filed a brief renewing its opposition to an infrastructure upgrade surcharge the PSC approved for the utility in 2016 that hasn’t stopped increases in rates and system water losses since then.

“The Company is currently relying on the [surcharge] to generate profits on its capital investments, without having to demonstrate any substantive improvement in the overall condition of its system and while legitimate concerns about the reliability of the Company’s system continue to persist,� the Consumer Advocate Division said in its filing. “The CAD believes that the availability of safe, clean, and affordable water, along with sanitation, is a fundamental human right. Water and sewer services are a necessity for the people of West Virginia, not a luxury.�

West Virginia American Water has contended its rate increase request is justified by increasing operating and maintenance expenses, including those stemming from new regulatory requirements, pending acquisitions and increased production costs.

PSC also contending with vacancies

Williams argued the Consumer Advocate Division needs more support as West Virginia furthers its pursuit of power-hungry data centers that threaten to strain the electric grid within and beyond the state’s borders.

Market force uncertainties, the likelihood of increased efficiency and modeling disparities make it challenging to project future data center energy use, but large-scale data center growth could prompt critical decisions about constructing and paying for generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure among the state’s political and utility leaders.

“We're going to go through a change in the United States that's driven by data centers and other things looking for somewhere to locate,� Williams said.

The Consumer Advocate Division faces that uncertain future with a budget that Williams noted is funded by assessments collected by the PSC from regulated utilities, with no general revenue or lottery appropriations.

The division is an independent wing of the PSC, which faces an operational threat of its own due to many staff facing retirement and private- and public-sector competition, from private and public sector entities, PSC Chairman Charlotte Lane indicated in a presentation before the Senate Finance Committee Wednesday.

Lane reported 40-plus open positions the roughly 220-employee PSC plans to refill within its utilities program, including at least 13 utilities analysts.

“We have a lot of need for financial advisors, accountants, lawyers,� Lane said, “and it's very, very difficult for us to hire people.�

But as utilities keep asking for more from ratepayers, the PSC’s Consumer Advocate Division finds itself asking for more, too.

“We are aggressively advocating issues and developing records for supporting commission orders to do what we want them to do, and without hiring the experts and without being able to make those cases, you can't even have a record to protect the public interest,� Williams told the committee.