HK - Florida Public Service Commission transcript - Fees and Expenses
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1 Q And can you share that with us?
2 A Yes. I've examined the legal bills, the consultants'
3 bills and in-house charges from Aqua Services associated with
4 rate case expense.
5 I am recommending that the Commission disallow rate
6 case expense associated with billings from the Rutledge, Ecenia
7 Law Firm that were related to the last rate case. There's
8 $40,000 worth of expenses associated with the 2006 rate case
9 that were included in the legal expenses. I'm also
10 recommending that legal expenses associated with the refund
11 reports associated with the last rate case be disallowed.
12 I'm recommending that expenses associated with the
13 townhall meetings be disallowed. I'm also recommending that
14 legal expenses associated with Mr. Rendell's -- the lawyers
15 spent a lot of time examining the ethical issues associated
16 with Mr. Rendell's employment, and I'm recommending that those
17 expenses be disallowed.
18 I'm recommending that the law firm, Holland &
19 Knight's expenses associated with Lake Suzy matters be
20 disallowed. They spent approximately $8,000, $9,000 on Lake
21 Suzy issues associated with the fact -- as I understand it from
22 reading the legal bills, that particular system was owned by a
23 Texas company and there were some concerns apparently about how
24 that particular system could be a part of this rate case. And
25 if you look at that legal bill, it's not even associated with
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1 the rate case. It's an entirely different bill. It has a
2 different in re in terms of what they're billing for.
3 In addition, on that particular bill, on those
4 particular bills Mr. May charged, I believe it was $460 an
5 hour; whereas, in the rate case he's charging $365.
6 I'm also recommending that legal expenses associated
7 with certain discovery matters be disallowed. The company at
8 some point during the process changed their protocol in terms
9 of responding to OPC discovery. And rather than providing us
10 with information electronically, they kept the information at
11 Holland & Knight and required that OPC come and examine those
12 documents. In order for OPC to do that, the company had to
13 print the documents rather than provide that information
14 electronically, and I don't believe it's appropriate that the
15 ratepayers should pay for that added expense.
16 In addition, on the legal bills for Holland & Knight
17 there were charges associated with the return on equity
18 leverage proceeding. At one point in time it appears from
19 reading the legal bills that they were thinking about
20 intervening in that docket. They did not intervene in that
21 docket, so I'm recommending that those expenses be disallowed.
22 They're not associated with this rate case.
23 I'm also recommending that expenses from the law firm
24 be disallowed associated with the time to respond to the staff
25 deficiencies. I'm also recommending that expenses be
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1 disallowed associated with the substitution of witnesses,
2 particularly with the one witness Mr. Rendell. His testimony
3 was taken over by Mr. Smeltzer and there are legal fees
4 associated with that.
5 I'm also recommending that the consulting fees be
6 disallowed for the deficiencies, and there's quite a bit of
7 expense there. And then I'm also recommending that $67,000 be
8 disallowed associated with AUS Consultants' fees. In the last
9 rate case the -- that particular firm did the billing analysis
10 in this proceeding, and in the last case those functions were
11 performed by more or less in-house individuals. And so I'm
12 recommending that the difference in the hourly rate between
13 what was charged by AUS Consultants and the charge of the
14 individuals that are, they're in-house -- some are in-house but
15 others are consultants that primarily work for the company that
16 are charging $100 an hour. So what I've done is substituted
17 the $100 an hour for his time.
18 Q Do you have any additional comments?
19 A I'm just trying to make sure I've covered it all.
20 Q Okay.
