County considering settlement proposal for El Paso Electric rate increase case

There isn’t a lot going on in the public view at the moment, but a lot is going behind the scenes on from the government side of things in deciding what to do about the El Paso Electric rate case. Specifically, El Paso County commissioners have been getting updates about what’s going on with a possible settlement and deciding what the county should do.

“The commissioners court had some outstanding questions,” said El Paso County Judge Veronica Escobar Monday, “and so our lawyer is going to discuss the questions with the Austin lawyers, and get back with us next week. We may finalize this next week from the county’s perspective.”

The county is considering signing on to a general settlement offer with El Paso Electric, working with the city and other government entities affected by the proposed rate increase across the state. Escobar said from the county’s perspective, it’s mostly about the cost increase to run county facilities. That could in turn get passed on to the tax payers.

While it could be difficult to stop any increase from happening, county leaders say they do want to fight for constituents.

“Well, it’s going to go up regardless,” Escobar said. “It’s just a matter of if we lose our rate 41 status, which is the status specific to governmental entities, which helps us keep our rates lower. We all suspect it’s going to go up. It’s just a question of how much.”

The county is scheduled to discuss the rate case again in executive session during the commissioner’s court meeting this coming Monday morning.