SUNDRE – Local natural gas customers can anticipate receiving a minor rebate on November’s utility bill.
As a Gas Alberta Inc. shareholder, the Town of Sundre must decide how to allocate any refunds – which being largely dependent on economic factors are not automatically guaranteed – granted by the company.
Council heard during the regular Nov. 6 meeting that the municipality had received correspondence from the company informing shareholders about its plan to refund a total of $4 million that came “as a result of gains that were generated by the company’s gas management activities during the fiscal year ending June 30, 2023,” reads part of the letter signed by Paul Dunsmore, president and CEO.
Sundre’s slice of the pie, which was determined through a calculation involving the total amount of gas consumed by all shareholders – about 30.6 million gigajoules – compared with the municipality’s overall consumption of 237,283 gigajoules, nearly amounted to an even $31,000.
“It is not an automatic refund; we don’t always get it,” said Chris Albert, director of corporate services, later adding amounts also fluctuate.
There was no rebate in 2022, and while motions in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2021 were carried returning the rebate to utility customers, council in 2020 had instead opted to transfer the refund to the utilities lifecycling restricted surplus account, said Albert.
Administration presented a few options for council’s consideration, but ultimately recommended passing along the refund back to the municipality’s utility customers through a one-time per gigajoule credit associated with the amount consumed in November 2023.
“We did the calculations on what that would look like,” said Albert. “It would equate to approximately $15.86 on an individual residential bill. Now, those numbers would change for say a commercial property, depending on how much gas was used . . . so it is kind of just an estimate; it may be more or less depending on the users.”
The other options presented to council were to either transfer the refund to the utilities lifecycling restricted surplus account, or to direct administration to record the $31,000 as an additional revenue item for the gas department in 2023.
“We think for consistency’s sake, it is most appropriate to apply it back to those bills and give it back to the individual users,” said Albert.
Coun. Todd Dalke so moved the recommended motion to approve applying a per gigajoule credit on utility bills issued in December 2023 for natural gas consumption used throughout the month of November 2023, with the rebate rate being dependent on the total number of gigajoules sold.
“Previously, I always thought it was an insignificant amount by dollar figure and most households wouldn’t notice that extra few dollars and I thought we always should do projects,” said Dalke.
But in light of this year’s change to the 2024 Fortis franchise fee, which council recently increased to 12 from 10 per cent, the councillor said, “I do believe that this one, especially when it’s paid by that same user, that when they have paid that profit, we should now return it back to them.”
The motion carried with only Coun. Connie Anderson opposed.
