Remember this as you hear the Brownwood Republican Talking Heads @ KXYL-96.9FM trying to convince you all is well !

Fuel, utilities erode budgets
By PAUL A. ANTHONY, panthony@sastandardtimes.com or 659-8237
August 31, 2006

James Roach understands if customers avoid dropping their clothes at his dry-cleaning service in favor of filling their tanks or paying their electric bills - he's battling the same pressures himself.
At Cornelison Bros. Cleaners, founded in 1908 and owned by Roach the past 23 years, the situation has grown dire, with falling profits, rising expenses and one root cause of it all - utility costs.
''It's hard to make a living,'' Roach said. ''We're just barely paying the bills.''
He isn't alone.
From the city's small businesses to City Hall itself, San Angelo employers are feeling the heat this summer from sky-high utility costs and gasoline prices.
''We're looking at everything we can do to minimize the costs,'' City Manager Harold Dominguez said.
Profits fell 28 percent at Cornelison Bros. between June and July, spurred by the shrinking customer base, electricity bills nearly three times higher than ever, and natural gas bills reaching the same levels.
All this despite attempts to conserve energy, Roach said. The business' nine employees keep non-essential lights in the company's Sherwood Way and College Hills Boulevard locations turned off all day.
Thirty minutes before closing time, the gas boiler is turned off, and it ''coasts in'' on the built-up heat.
''I'm trying to cut down on everything I possibly can,'' Roach said. ''It's ridiculous. They're nailing us to the wall.''
At Cornelison Bros., electricity costs - never above $700 in any given month previously - skyrocketed to $1,700 in May. The result, Roach said, has been an energy surcharge passed on to consumers that still doesn't cover all the company's increased costs.
In other places, the numbers are larger, but the situation's the same.
''One of the things we have to deal with is so much of our operations are open to the public,'' Dominguez said, adding that San Angelo city employees are asked to keep thermostats set higher, and to turn off lights and fans when possible.
The city budgeted $4.015 million for electricity costs during the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. However, by Aug. 15, the city had spent $4.1 million.
The city also has surpassed its fuel budget - spending slightly more than its allotted $1 million with six weeks left in the fiscal year.
Rising utility costs led the San Angelo City Council last month to add $95,000 each to the city's 2007 budgets for electricity and gas.
The city also is looking at changes to the buildings themselves that could make them more energy-efficient.
High energy prices have forced the city's department heads to divert money from other parts of their budgets to pay electricity and gas costs, Dominguez said, although none has reached such crisis proportions as to cut back on services.
The situation is much the same in the San Angelo Independent School District, where ever-increasing summer programs are keeping school buildings open longer during the summer, said Jim Elson, the district's maintenance director.
''Our campuses are open a lot longer than years past,'' Elson said. ''It seems to be the trend with so many extra things going on.''
Newer school buildings are equipped with remote-controlled energy-saving devices, Elson said, while older buildings have thermostats installed with automatic timers.
Elson also organizes teams of students and other volunteers to watch for lights and electrical devices left on in vacant offices and rooms.
''We work very closely with campus principals to make sure we're not running things we don't need to be running,'' Elson said.
At Cornelison, meanwhile, Roach questioned how much his small business can stand.
Winter could bring relief, but last winter's natural gas bills were nearly as exorbitant as this summer's electricity bills. The company is counting on temperate weather and lower fuel prices this autumn, Roach said.
''I've never seen it this bad,'' he said. ''There ought to be a happy medium. Somebody ought to set a price on them.
''It's not the American way (to institute price controls), but it's killing Americans.''

source: http://www.sanangelostandardtimes.com/sast/news_local/article/0,1897,SAST_4956_4957997,00.html
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Editorial: Texas parks' drought

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Compare Texas state parks to a fine team of horses. It has served well, working hard in the Texas sun. Now it finds itself penned off from a sumptuous tank from which to drink.

If Texans think they’re enduring a drought, they only need to look to their state parks system to know what a dry spell really means. We’re talking money in this instance.

The cruel irony is that Texas created a reservoir of funds for those parks. In recent years, however, it has siphoned most of the dollars away.

The fund was created 13 years ago with a tax on sporting goods. This year it raised $105 million. That could really help Texas parks, which have been under serious budget pressures for much of a decade. Unfortunately, and irresponsibly, lawmakers have capped the amount used for state parks at $32 million, diverting the rest elsewhere.

Indeed, last year lawmakers diverted even more. The parks got only $20.6 million of those designated funds.

Budget restrictions on Texas parks have exacted big-time hurt, from closing swimming pools to prohibiting overnight camping at many locations.

Mother Neff State Park near Moody, its staff depleted, has had to reduce the number of days it rents out group structures. Because of the staffing crunch, it can’t have next-day turnaround in cleaning those public venues. This hurts its revenue stream: Yes, even less money for Mother Neff.

That brings up a point made by parks supporters. These assets help Texas economically. A study of 80 parks last year found that they generated about $1.2 billion in sales and local income. About 10 million people visit Texas parks each year.

Recently, Gov. Rick Perry requested that state agencies propose 10 percent cuts in spending. That, said the head of Parks and Wildlife, could result in the closure of 18 parks.

Of dollars designated for parks but diverted away, Perry has said he supports using them exclusively for their intended purpose. If not, the state should either lower the tax on sporting goods or abolish the fund entirely.

In recent years, something comparably cruel has happened with money raised from a surcharge on electric bills and intended to go into a pool of money for helping low-income Texans with their utility costs.

Brazenly, lawmakers took those dollars — over $70 million a year — and routed them into the general fund so they could pronounce the budget balanced with “no new taxes.” Perry has called for those dollars to be used as intended.

Texas’s next governor should expose such smoke-and-mirrors budget ruses which allow lawmakers to crow “no new taxes.”

Texas parks are fine creatures to treat so miserably.

source: http://www.wacotrib.com/opin/content/news/opinion/stories/2006/08/30/08302006waceditorial.htm
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Rising electric bills fanning resentment

11:20 PM CDT on Wednesday, August 30, 2006

By DAVID FLICK / The Dallas Morning News

Devetta Miller had already heard that electricity rates had increased, so when it became obvious that summer 2006 would be particularly hot, the 40-year-old travel agent tried to conserve.
She set the thermostat in her 2,100-square-foot DeSoto home at 78 degrees. She put solar screens on the windows, wore shorts and used appliances sparingly.
But when she saw her electric bill, she was anything but cool. Her most recent statement, which included several weeks of August, came to $551.
It's a chilling reality for most electricity customers this summer.
"I heard that electricity was going to be a little more expensive, but I guess I wasn't expecting this," Ms. Miller said. "Needless to say, this came as kind of a shock. I was taken aback."
When a carryover balance was included, she owed $863 to TXU. To put that in painful perspective: A 30-year fixed mortgage on a $150,000 house in Dallas would cost $10 less a month, and a five-year loan on a BMW 325i would be $678 a month.
Ms. Miller is not pleased by the comparison.
"It gets to the point where you have to compromise between paying your electricity or paying your mortgage," she said. "That's what it will come down to for some people."
It cost Betty Biggins, a 59-year-old retiree, $558 last month to cool her 1,600-square-foot Oak Cliff home – about twice the bill for this time last year.
"I complained about it last year," she said. "But if it was that way again, I'd be happy."
She copes by keeping the thermostat at 80 degrees and using ceiling fans. Still, she said, she has had to cut back in other ways, such as using the clothes dryer at night and serving cold cuts at dinner – in part to save on her food bill and in part to keep the stove from warming up the house.
TXU spokeswoman Sophia Stoller said the higher bills stemmed from a combination of a 24 percent rate increase and an unusually hot summer.
Ms. Stoller hears a lot of complaints about the higher bills – and not just from electricity customers.
"I get it from friends and even people here in the office," she said. " 'What can I do to lower energy bills?' "
Users 'have a choice'
She noted that TXU, like most utility companies, has programs to aid low-income people. For the rest, she said, she counsels energy conservation – installing dimmers on lights, timers on water heaters and thermostats, better insulation and more efficient air conditioners.
"I think what needs to happen is for people to change their habits. They have a choice, and they have control over it," she said.
Often, however, it costs money to save money.
Poor people often can't afford such investments, said Kathy Martin, a volunteer at St. Gabriel the Archangel Catholic Community in McKinney.
Her church's St. Vincent DePaul Society has a program to help low-income households pay utility bills. Requests for assistance this year are running about three to four times the normal level, she said.
"So many have houses with poor insulation, and their [air-conditioning] units are old," she said. "In some cases, their electric bills are higher than their rent. It's just impossible for some people."
For those who can afford it, however, there are savings to be had.
Dan Miller, owner of Dan Miller Air Conditioning in Lake Highlands, said he has heard from owners of 3,600-square-foot houses with $700-a-month utility bills. In some cases, he said, the bills can be lowered by replacing refrigerant or by cleaning dirty condensers.
But not in other cases.
"We have to come back to some people and say we couldn't find a mechanical problem," he said. "It's just a case of when they have a big house and they like to keep it cool, their bills are going to be high."
Going to great lengths
For some people, it depends how far they want to carry conservation.
Ann Gaut of Allen is prepared to go pretty far.
When she moved from Florida into her 1,300-square-foot home in February, she prepared for the hot Texas summers.
She put heavy-duty fiberglass insulation in her rafters. She keeps the thermostat at 77 degrees. She turns it off in the morning, then opens her doors and allows industrial fans to stir up a breeze.
She turns on her water heater in the morning, does dishes, then turns it off.
To keep sunlight out, she installed glass tinting (with the backing still on) on some windows. She put a layer of greenhouse screening on her sliding glass door, covered it with two layers of silver insulation and then covered that with a blue quilt.
It worked.
Her August electric bill: $182.
"I can't see outside," she said. "But my house is cool."
E-mail dflick@dallasnews.com
COMPARING COSTS
A person with an average credit rating would have monthly payments of:
$380 for a $40,000 swimming pool at 7.9 percent interest for 15 years
$678 for a $32,000 BMW 325i at 7 percent interest for five years
$853 for a $150,000 house with 10 percent down and a 6.5 percent, 30-year fixed mortgage
SOURCES: Mastercraft Pools; BMW Mortiz; Dallas Morning News research

source: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/083106dnmetstickershock.32a6585.html
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Dirty or clean ? It's all up to you.

Ever wonder why the average Texan's electric bill has gone up nearly 80% under Governor Perry? Or why the state's largest power company is also the state's second-largest lobbyist? Texas has some of the highest energy costs—not to mention the dirtiest air—in the country because we have some of the dirtiest government in the country. Simple as that.
source: www.kinkyfriedman.com

visit www.kinkyfriedman.com for some common sense opinions and plans to the challenges facing Texans. Kinky ain't the type of guy who will tell you all is well when you can see for yourself that all is not well.