El Paso Electric proposes $70 million rate increase in Doña Ana County

LAS CRUCES, New Mexico (KVIA) -- El Paso Electric hosted a public meeting where New Mexico residents expressed their frustration on a potential rate increase.

The increase would see the average home in Doña Ana County pay about $42 more per month next year. It's the first rate increase since 2015, with El Paso Electric saying the increase is to recover costs from over $400 million in investments to New Mexico infrastructure.

"In the New Mexico case, the bulk of that what we're talking about is local investment," said Jim Schichtl, VP of Strategic Regulation for El Paso Electric. "That is investment into the poles and wires and substations and transformers that serve customers on the distribution side. There's also been investment primarily in transmission, in this case, and that's about it."

Residents at the meeting were not happy about the increase.

"I think that that may sound like a little bit to a CEO whose company brings in $140 million in profit a year, but $42 is a couple bags of groceries," said Israel Chavez, a local attorney in Las Cruces. "It's a tank of gas to get to and from school or work. It's a lot of money, and El Paso Electric stands to benefit immeasurably from what they're calling a modest increase."

El Paso Electric said that they likely won't get a resolution on the rate increase until some point next year, but the process has officially begun with these meetings.