Flame Burns Low for U.S. Assistance on Energy Bills for the Poor
By Jack Naudi, St. Louis Post-Dispatch Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Advocates for the poor face a daunting task when it comes to finding assistance to pay for heating and cooling bills.
Several hundred energy-assistance advocates are at the Hyatt Regency in St.
Louis this week to share some of the best ideas from around the country. Most
are members of one of three groups holding annual meetings and conferences.
The focus Monday was on the annual conference by the National Fuel Funds
Network. Fuel funds supplement the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance
Program, Liheap. The two major fuel funds in the St. Louis area are Dollar More
and Dollar-Help.
Last year, fuel funds nationwide raised about $150 million to supplement
Liheap. But the total amount provided by fuel funds and Liheap doesn't come
close to meeting the need, Steve Gaw, chairman of the Missouri Public Service
Commission, told network members.
Gaw said he expects natural gas prices, which have doubled in the last three
years, will remain high. "I would like to say it's an aberration, but
that's not so."
With higher gas prices come higher heating bills and more families in need of
assistance. Calls for energy assistance increased more than 50 percent last
winter in some urban areas, Gaw said.
The fuel funds network wants Congress to boost federal funding to $3.4
billion a year. Even that isn't enough, however, said speakers at the
conference, so fuel funds will continue to be a critical back-up.
Locally, that falls to Dollar-Help, which assists primarily Laclede Gas
customers, and Dollar More, directed toward Ameren Corp. customers in Missouri
and Illinois. The two programs are considered models, in part because of their
efficiency: Virtually all of the money they raise from customers and the
utilities goes to needy customers.
They are also among the oldest fuel funds in the nation.
Both Laclede and Ameren "have good, solid local programs and are viewed
by their peers as national leaders," said George Coling, executive director
of the fuel fund network. On Monday, Laclede was singled out for the network's
corporate excellence award.
Douglas Yaeger, Laclede's chairman, chief executive and president, said his
company does not look at its contributions to Dollar-More as an obligation.
"Many of our customers really do try to keep up with all of their
bills," Yaeger said. "If we can help get them out of a jam, it's good
business."
Indeed, one speaker said fuel funds can and should make the case that
utilities will help their bottom lines by increasing their donations to fuel
funds.
Utilities pay $132 to $357 to collect on each delinquent account, said David
Ewing, president of the San Francisco Consulting Group, a marketing and sales
consulting group that works with fuel funds.
By helping to prevent delinquencies and late payments, fuel funds can save
utilities $2 to $40 for every dollar invested, Ewing said.
"Collections can be expensive," he said. "If you step in
quickly, it has a big payoff for a utility."
Other speakers said fuel funds need to do more to promote themselves,
especially to utilities.
"Very often, you end up being a voice in the wilderness," said
David Fox, communications director for Campaign for Home Energy Assistance, a
Washington-based program to promote Liheap.
"If you don't have a good relationship, you need to establish it,"
Fox said. "If you do have a good relationship, you need to strengthen
it."
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