THE PERQUIMANS WEEKLY
Volume 36, No. 42
USPS 421-080
Hertford, Perquimans County, N.C., Thursday, October 16, 1980
20 CENTS
Hertford sets electric rate hike of 15 per cent
The Hertford Town Council increased
electric rates by 15 percent at a
specially -called session Friday.
^ The town's action followed auditors'
* recommendations at the regular monthly
meeting last Monday. Accountants Ottis
Hurd and Edward Lang told town
commissioners then that the town either
needed to increase electric rates or slash
the 1900 budget in order to fund the some
143,306 deficit in the general fund carried
over tram the lf7M0 fiscal year and
inflate a nearly depleted cash flow.
According to Hertford Mayor and
Town Manager Bill Cox, the 15 percent
increase in per kilowatt cost, effective
Nov. 1, should generate approximately
ft5.att.20, a figure he said was based on
the amount of kilowatts sold in the town
last year.
Cox told the council Friday that the
town needed to generate between 165,000
and $85,000 "just to slide through this
year without any major breakdowns, and
that's a conservative figure."
According to the accountants' report
last week, the town actually needs some
$97,543 to be considered in good shape.
Aside from the $43,206 deficit carried
over from last year's general fund, the
town is short another $15,513 in the water
sewer fund (required to make that fund
self-supporting), and some (39,000 in the
over-budgeted electrical fund.
The $15,543 needed for the water-sewer
fund is to cover that department's
bonded indebtedness (for Hertford's
waste treatment plant), which was
previously carried by both the general
and electrical funds.
The $39,000 needed to balance the
electrical fund was discovered after last
week's audit report indicated that the
$939,000 budgeted as revenue from
electric charges would actually bring
only $900,000 at the end of this fiscal year.
Cox later said that budget cuts would
absorb whatever shortfall not funded by
the electrical rate increase, the hike in
water-sewer prices, and the increase in
the price of ice for resale at the town ice
plant.
Increase not unanimous
The move to increase electric rates
was opposed by council member Jesse
Harris, who maintained that the 15
percent hike would "place too much of
the burden on just a few people."
(Continued on page 2 )
Mr. ugly returns
V ariety show
. ? , ? . 5 ; ? ?>'
is Saturday
The Perquimans County High
School auditorium will be the scene of
a good time and some easy listening
Saturday night, (Oct 18), when the
Band Booster Club sponsors the
second annual Variety Show to benefit
the county band program.
Showtime is 8 p.m., and admission
is $2. No advance tickets are being
sold.
A performance by the high school
band will open the evening. Local
music will also be provided by Detour,
making their initial appearance.
Returning to this year's show is the
man know as "Mr. Ugly," chosen by
the National Enquirer as the second
ugliest man in the U.S.A.
There will be singing by the current
Miss Suffolk, Joyce Roberts, and
baton twirling by award-winning
Laura White.
Andy Damiani and his group will be
on hand. Damiani was an in
ternational recording artist in the
1950s, and is one of Europe's well
known musicians.
Chavez Mabry, a young actor
featured in the recent Tidewater
Dinner Theatre production of "The
King and I," will also perform.
The Nothin' Doin' Band, a
progressive bluegrass group, will
highlight this year's show.
Emcee of the event is Beverley
Burton, afternoon deejay, program
and music director of WQZQ-Q92, who
will also conduct an auction of the
several items on sale to aid the band
program.
Refreshments will also be for sale.
Over 1200 eligible
, T" uelTielp program gearing up
The Perquimans County Department
of Social Services is expected to begin
processing applications for federal fuel
assistance money for low-income county
residents in the near future, according to
social services director Paul Gregory.
The program will be administered
H solely through social services, and those
" persons eligible for fuel assistance
should receive checks in mid-January,
he said.
State estimates are that 1,215
households will be eligible for help on
their fuel bills this winter, but Gregory
said that figure may be too low. It is
. difficult to determine precisely because
final income eligibility has not been
determined.
"They're toying with a poverty line
figure," said Gregory.
Last year, fuel assistance was intended
to be limited to 1200 per household. This
year, Gregory said, the figure could be
higher, depending on the needs of the
family.
Social services will take applications
and send them to the state Department of
Human Resources, which will determine
whether or not the applicant is eligible,
he said. The amount of assistance the
applicant will receive will be decided by
use of a computer program that takes
into account 75 to 80 different variables,
Gregory said.
A major change in the program this
year is that all of the checks will be
mailed directly to the recipients. Last
year, most of the checks went to the fuel
vendors for outstanding bills.
"We're all hoping they'll spend it on
fuel," said Gregory, adding, "some will
spend it various different ways."
Social services will try to make cer
tain, though, that those who get checks
are actually responsible for fuel bills.
Combined with the January check
mailing, Gregory acknowledged that the
direct payment may create a problem
for some recipients.
"They (fuel vendors) cannot afford to
(Continued on page 2 )
Membership meeting
' Vepco inefficiency outlined
The executive director of the N.C.
Utilities Commission gets irritated when
he hears claims that gubernatorial ef
fort a to get Vepco out of Northeastern
North Carolina are just politics as usual.
Robert Fiachbach, featured speaker at
I the annual Albemarle Electric Mem
bership meeting, came armed with facta
and figures to prove that tirades against
the out-of-state electricity supplier are
more than just hot air.
"Their rates are not just higher,
they're a lot higher, and nothing we've
got shows there will be any change," said
Fiachbach.
The job of the public staff is to defend
the public interest before the North
1 Carolina Utilities Commission. The
public staff had already brought a suc
cessful case against Vepco before the
commisaion, and a rate reduction and
refunds were ordered for Vepco
customers In North Carolina.
But that rutin* waa overturned by the
N.C. Court of Appeals on what Ftsehbach
called a "legal technicality," and the
it now being appealed to the N.C.
I Part of the problem is that Vepco uses
too many ofl find generating plants,
Plaehbach said. Be said the staff
agaSLtM? Then thJr? suddenly began a
deeparata conversion presses.
> my* ' mam
plenty of time to begin conversions, but
waited until the last possible moment at
the expense of the consumer.
Fischbach used charts and graphs to
present his case from several different
angles. A typical retail user chart in
dicated that Vepco had begun climbing
well ahead of Carolina Power ft light in
October of 1978 and peaked out 49.5 per
cent more pa- 1000 killowatt hours as of
Julyl,lM0.
On Nov. 1, Vepco ws charging its retail
customers 39.6 per cent more than was
CPftL.
Another chart indicated that Vepco
industrial rates at various usage levels
ranged from S2J to to 43 per cent higher
than CPftL.
"We believe that the rate charts for
electricity to industry art extremely
Important because they have a lot to do
with whether a new industry comes to an
area," said Fischbach.
Vepco's capacity factors, or the per
centage of capacity at which their
generating units operate, are also very
poor, Fischbach said.
He said that nuclear and coal units are
the cheapest to operate and henee should
be operated at greatest capacity, but
Vepco ha*t gotten * production
wtflfHiml in"1 nyU"r
"What would you do if the car you
owned ran only 10 per cent of the time
you called on KT,M Fischbach asked.
"Would you keep it, er would yon junk
*?"
?eat rale was another ares In which
Vepco lagged boMnd the N.C. utilities.
Comparing heat rate to miles per gallon
for a car, Fischbach said that Vepco
required more fuel to generate a
killowatt hour of fuel than did the N.C.
utilities.
Add to that the fact that Vepco pays
nearly 3 cents per killowatt hour for fuel,
whereas CP&L pays about a penny, and
you come up with consistently higher
rates, he said.
Getting Vepco out of North Carolina,
however, will not be an easy proposition.
There will be both legal and engineering
problems, Fischbach said.
For coopeiatives and municipalities,
the legal problems should be resolved
with the expiration of contracts.
Then there is the question of whether
another supplier can build lines to serve
the municipality or cooperative at a
reasonable cost, or whether a wheeling
agreement can be reached, in which tLe
power is transmitted over someone else's
lines.
For North Carolina retail customers
served directly by Vepco, legislation
would be required. Vepco was granted a
franchise to operate in North Carolina
but the agreement included no clause for
rescinding.
In any event, it will be extremely tough
to get Vepco out of the state, Fischbach
said.
But there is some cause to believe that
Vepco's record in North Carolina will
improve i| the future. Top level
management changes have been enacted
that appear to be for the better, Fisch
bach said.
"From what we can see it's clearly a
move for the better," Fischbach said.
"We have some higher confidence in
Vepco than we did a year ago," he said.
"Maybe the question isn't whether Vepco
is improving, but is there a better op
tion?"
In the business portion of the meeting,
Albemarle Electric general manager Ed
Brown announced that the N.C. Electric
Membership Association is buying into
the Duke Power Catawba Nuclear
Generating Station.
Though Albemarle Electric cannot buy
directly from the power source, its
acquisition should mean a savings down
the road for cooperative members.
Brown said that 72 cents of each dolllar
the electric membership purchases is
going towards electricity, and the
membership has little control over
prices.
"There's no reason to believe that
electric rates will do anything but con
tinue to increase," said Brown. "Your
best bet is to conserve," he said.
The membership offers a free energy
audit that points out ways to cut elec
tricity usage in the home, he said.
Brown also announced that some
$50,000 in retired capital credits would be
returned to Albemarle Electric members
this year.
In the election of directors, three in
cumbents were returned to office. Earl
Meigfs was elected from Camden
County, Joseph Bynin (n>m Chowan and
Floyd Matthews, Sr. from Perquimans.
Audit shows
county sound
Perquimans County stayed well within
its budget during the fiscal year that
ended June 30, according to a recently
released audit.
Beginning the year with a fund balance
in the general fund of $622,059.91, county
government wound up the year with a
fund balance of $671,357.14.
"I like to think of it mostly as a savings
account," said county finance officer
D.F. Reed Jr. of the county's healthy
fund balance.
The fund balance is carried over from
year to year as sort of an operating
cushion, he said.
Much of it is invested and drawing
interest, but some is kept in cash to meet
emergencies, and to fund county
operations during periods of lean cash
flow. Not all of the money is surplus,
Reed said.
General fund expenditures came to
$934,394.81 during the year, $76,461.19
less than a general fund budget of
$1,010,856.
Revenues also exceeded budget. The
county had anticipated general fund
revenues of $891,738, but actually took in
$983,690.91, a difference of $91,952.
In essence, the county took in some
$49,000 more than it spent in the general
fund.
Much of the excess came from interest
on invested funds. With rates soaring
during the year, the county picked up
$29,432.26 more than budgeted in interest
income, even after an amendment
during the year that increased the
amount anticipated.
The local option sales tax netted
$23,886.73 more than the county had
budgeted, and taxes and interest netted
$18,103.30 more than the $490,200
budgeted in the general fund.
Several revenue sources generated
less money than anticipated, but the only
ones of signifigance were a $7,229.59
underage in Care and Food Stamp
program contributions, and a
miscellaneous revenue shortfall of
$1,596.66.
Several other funds were left with
monies in them that were carried over
into the present year.
A court facilities fund holds $30,248.56,
but that amount is restricted by state
statutes to be spent only on court
facilities. Last week the commissioners
decided to pave the parking lot behind
the Blanchard Building for courthouse
use from the facilities fund. Com
missioner Lester Simpson had gotten a
price estimate of $3,055.05 for removing
cement flooring remaining from the
demolition of the one story portion of the
building and paving the lot.
The commissioners also discussed
using some of the funds to improve a
troublesome heating and air conditioning
system in the courthouse.
As a reserve against the next
revaluation, the county held $66,900.03 at
the end of the fiscal year.
Tax collections for the year totaled
$1,127,226.65, a figure amounting to 95.8
per cent of a net levy of $1,176,178.40.
Uncollected taxes as of June 30 in
cluded land sales certificates totalling
$36,330.08.
County residents payed a tax rate of
$1.10 per $100 valuation, with 48 cents
appropriated to the general fund, a cent
and a half designated for the revaluation
fund, two cents bound for the general
assistance fund, 36.5 cents appropriated
to the general school fund, 12 cents ap
propriated to the school supplement
fund, and 10 cents targeted for capital
outlay for the schools.
The major criticism of monetary
practices in the auditor's letter to the
county was a lack of internal controls in
the tax-water department.
The complaint has been the same for
several years, but the auditor
acknowledged that internal controls are
always a problem for rural counties
because of small staffs.
Pill Hi nil i' rniM? M? ? MM?1? Bi i'il" illlii " * &*;,< .
Up a tree
The tret by the social Mirfcea building
vat taken down a piece at a time laat
week, until It waa whittled to a length
that coald be aafely dropped acroti
Dobbs Street Up the toe with the
chains** is Jerry Wsfter of JfcL Tree
Service.