BILL NUMBER: S5126
SPONSOR: COMRIE
 
TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the public service law, in relation to complaint proce-
dures and retaining billing records for a certain period of time
 
PURPOSE:
Toensure rate related complaints made to the PSC are handled in a fair
and efficient manner.
 
SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS:
Section 1 of the bill amends § 43 of the public service law to ensure
residential gas, electric and steam service customers will receive a
written determination regarding rate related complaints explaining the
reasoning for the dLecision, ensure decisions are made by the PSC within
90 days of receiving the complaint, and ensure utility corporations
subject to this section will retain customer billing statements dating
back at least eight years.
Section 2 of the bill amends S 89-I of the public service law to ensure
water service customers will receive a written determination regarding
rate related complaints explaining the reasoning for the decision,
ensure decisions are made by the PSC within 90 days of receiving the
complaint, and ensure utility corporations subject to this section will
retain customer billing statements dating back at least eight years.
Section 3 of the bill amends S 71 of the public service law to ensure
nonresidential gas and electric service customers will receive a written
determination regarding rate related complaints explaining the reasoning
for the decision, ensure decisions are made by the PSC within 90 days of
receiving the complaint, and ensure utility corporations subject to this
Section will retain customer billing, statements dating back at least
eight years.
Section 4 of the bill amends S 84 of the public service law to ensure
steam service customers will receive a written determination regarding
rate related complaints explaining the reasoning for the decision,
ensure decisions are made by the PSC within 90 days of receiving the
complaint, and ensure utility corporations subject to this section will
retain customer billing statements dating back at least eight years.
Section 5 is the effective date.
 
JUSTIFICATION:
There is currently no legally mandated timeframe for the Public Service
Commission (PSC) to complete its investigation and issue a final written
determination for rate-related complaints against utilities. As a
result, customers often need to wait several months for final decisions
regarding rate related complaints.
Additionally, while the Public Service Law requires the PSC to provide a
written determination of any complaint by a residential gai and electric
customer upon request, the law has no provisions requiring a written
determination for complaints made regarding other types of utilities.
This bill would require the PSC to issue a final written determination
for rate related complaints against gas, electric, steam, and water
utilities within 90 days, which will ensure these complaints are
resolved in a more efficient manner. This provides certainty to custom-
ers by establishing a set timeframe for when their complaint will be
resolved. The bill also requires the PSC to include a justification
section in its written determination that explains the reasons for their
determination of the complaint, providing the customer with a better
understanding of the Commission's rationale.
Finally, this bill would require customer billing records to be retained
by utilities for eight years. There is currently no set period in the
law for utility retention of customer billing records, but the general
practice by utilities has been to retain such records for a six-year
period. This is because utilities may be required to retroactively
adjust a customer's bills for a period going back as far as six years
prior to the date a customer contests their bills.
The current record retention practice has made it difficult for a
certain category of customers, who are billed based on a "demand
charge," to effectively contest their bills for the full six-year retro-
active period. Because the rates charged to these customers are based on
their usage in previous years, they need access to billing records for
two years prior to the sixth year. By requiring records to be maintained
for eight years, this bill will ensure that all necessary billing
records are available.
 
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
2024: S8556
2023: vetoed, memo .118
2022: S9034- referred to energy and telecom
 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
None.
 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect on the thirtieth day after it shall have
become law.

Statutes affected:
S5126: 89-i public service law, 71 public service law, 84 public service law