Taxpayers pay another $347,312 to cover gross incompetence
Looks like another $347,312 of hard earned taxpayer money is scheduled for
the commode, with yet another transformer blown up by city employees at the
power plant. LWM first reported on this months ago when it happened.
The total cost to taxpayers for this act of gross incompetence is $647,312.
The incompetent behavior centers on the fact that no one checked for shorts/faults
after repairing transformer TPGT 1. Basic electricity 101 means you TEST BEFORE
ENERGIZING but Dave Mulvay (plant manager) ordered the transformer energized
anyway. According to records, Mike Timmons should have done the basic tests.
And the extent of this gross incompetence is likely the reason that the insurance
company is not paying a nickel.
To cover for her good friend plant manager Dave Mulvay, utility director Mattey
misinformed the public and commission yet again when she claimed that the blown
up transformer (TPGT 1) was too old to be insured. But utility employees informed
LWM that transformer TPL 2 was even older and it was insured.
Readers may recall that the utility director and city manager led a compliant
little commission majority by the nose in circumventing insurance procedure
on transformer TPL 2 and that cost taxpayers $650,000 in totally…deliberate
and unnecessary waste.
So without insurance coverage (likely because of the gross mishandling of equipment)
taxpayers will pay another $347,312 dollars and those responsible for this tab
got off without a scratch. This is computed by the total cost of repair $647,312
less the $300,000 we would have had to pay before insurance would kick in.
All of this demonstrates that TAXPAYERS ARE THE ONLY ONES PAYING FOR INCOMPETENCE
at the utility. Meanwhile employees continue business as usual wasting our money
with the knowledge that they will never be held accountable for anything…
especially if you’re a manager or director of anything.
So it is easy to see why our utility rates are going up while FPL rates are
going down. It all has to do with accountability. Both FPL and LWU are corporations.
LWU existed long before FPL but meanwhile LWU is but a pin prick on the map
of FPL territory. The difference is one corporation holds its employees, managers,
and directors accountable when they screw up and this reduces waste and eliminates
incompetence.
But unfortunately for the LWU rate payer, neither this commission majority
nor any other has ever cared enough to do anything about the gross mismanagement
of our utility because they’ve all been robbing it for so long that if
they don’t keep raising rates the city will not be solvent. So they ignore
waste issues as has been the common practice of all commissions, city managers
and utility directors.
And it’s the consultants, contractors and purveyors that feed at the
public troth that benefit substantially from this pervasive problem. The idea
seems to be… "grab the cash and pass it on to your friends" and just keep pulling a paycheck and let taxpayers pick up the
tab. This is causing the errosion of support for keeping the utility since paying a projected 48% more for LWU electricity than FPL neighbors will be paying two years from now... is very likely to trigger a movement to sell the utility, likely to the county for water and
FPL or Progress energy for electric.
So we will see if our new mayor who promised to demand a forensic audit of the utility and wanted to "reengineer the utility" and our new commissioner who promised to look into the high utility rates will actually take a good look at the wasting going on right under their noses... waste which will not show up with a forensic audit or with "reengineering the utility" whatever that means.
