St. Charles to study its utilities
In an Aug. 24 letter, a resident expressed concern regarding the operations of the St. Charles electric utility. He made statements regarding the wages and benefits of employees, was critical of decisions, and encouraged individuals to contact the city with concerns.
The $136,000 wage and benefit figure provided in the letter was calculated by taking total amounts for salary, overtime, and all benefits, including workers' compensation, insurance, Social Security, Medicare and pension, and simply dividing it by 15 employees in the union. The average salary of a union employee in the electric utility is $84,000. It is a fair salary for our committed employees, and is reasonable when compared to similar employees in other organizations.
The city of St. Charles is conducting a study to analyze the needs of its three utility systems - water, sewer and electric - over the next 10 years and to determine how to best structure rates to pay for infrastructure that is required to maintain the level of service the community expects. It is common for cities to use the expertise of an external resource to provide a fresh perspective and make the complex projections and calculations that are required.
St. Charles residents can take pride in knowing that electric service interruptions are rare. Service interruptions due to issues within the city's control are even more rare. When there is an outage, the time that customers are without service can usually be measured in minutes, not hours or days. In addition, St. Charles residents pay 3-4 percent less for electric service than other municipal utilities and 17 percent less than ComEd customers.
The city of St. Charles is committed to serving the community by providing reliable, safe and cost-effective electrical service to the community.
Donald P. DeWitte
Mayor
City of St. Charles