Another Thiele blast at PSEG
Assemblyman Fred Thiele Jr. calls PSEG promo misleading.
Assemblyman Fred Thiele Jr. (I-WF-Sag Harbor) isn’t letting go of his campaign to get PSEG to be more responsive to local needs.His latest salvo against the company is against what he sees as “propaganda” that the utility has put forward to its customers.
A six-panel mailer sent out to customers touting an improvement in customer satisfaction since the New Jersey-based company took over management of Long Island Power Authority misrepresents the facts, Mr. Thiele said in a press release Monday.
PSEG cites a J.D. Power and Associates survey it said demonstrates its customers satisfaction numbers, but Mr. Thiele offered several contrary results:
• PSEG-LI ranked last in the nation with a customer satisfaction score of 595 out of 1,000, or 95th among 95 utility companies across the nation, in a January 14, 2015 J.D. Powers report, Mr. Thiele said.
• In comparing customer satisfaction ratings to those LIPA received in the past, the earlier ratings were gathered right after “two of the worst hurricane seasons and the worst economic downturn in recent history” — Super Storm Sandy, Irene and the Great Recession.
• PSEG-LI is 82 points below the national average while in 2012, LIPA was 73 points below the national average.
PSEG-LI spokesman Jeffrey Weir confirmed the numbers Mr. Thiele cited, while arguing that there have been “significant improvements” since the utility company took over from LIPA in January 2014.
“We are last, but showed the most improvement” among utility companies, Mr. Weir said. People have to take into account what PSEG took over when it assumed responsibility for LIPA customers, he said.
“We inherited a system in desperate need of improvement,” Mr. Weir said. PSEG knew it wasn’t going to be an immediate turn-around, he said. That’s why the utility company put out a five-year plan.
“We know our job has just begun,” he said.
At the same time, the utility company reviewed several projects LIPA had on the books and determined that several don’t need to be undertaken in the near future, saving ratepayers millions of dollars, he said.
There are more efficiencies to be had and that’s something PSEG is undertaking, he added.
“PSEG-LI is last in the nation in customer satisfaction and has the chutzpah to ask for a rate increase and send out a mailer to its customers telling them how satisfied they are,” Mr. Thiele said.
When Governor Andrew Cuomo told LIPA in 2013 it had to operate better, the utility’s answer was to spend more, Mr. Thiele said.
“We don’t have more money. You can’t keep putting your hand in the pocket of ratepayers,” he said. “The answer is, use the money you have better.”
