02.15.2025 The game with Con Ed’s rates: Why force the utility to pay sky-high property taxes that get passed on to customers?
Like everyone else, including Gov. Hochul, we don’t want Con Ed rates to grow higher, but New Yorkers do need the utility to continue to deliver electricity and natural gas, and in case you didn’t hear, prices have been going up for everything. Unfortunately, among those rising prices will also have to be the price of getting the electricity that you use to power just about everything in your life.
But there has to be a better way to do this and part of that is reforming New York City’s very kooky property tax structure, where Con Ed pays more to City Hall than anyone else and then has to charge higher fees to customers.
So once again begins the ballet of the regulated monopoly proposing a rate increase to the state Public Service Commission and there being a back and forth as the number is haggled out over the next 11 months. Con Ed is asking for a 11.4% increase beginning on Jan. 1, 2026. With Hochul (who is running for reelection in 2026), outraged at the request, count on her appointees on the PSC to come up with a lower figure. The last time around, the PSC reduced the final number by 60% from the initial Con Ed proposal.