The Kansas Gas Service is asking the Kansas Corporation Commission for a $28 million increase in its net base rate. The utility’s last rate increase was approved in 2012.
If the request is approved, Kansas Gas Service says the average residential customer's bill would increase by 7.2 percent. Dawn Ewing with the Kansas Gas Service says that’s about $4.34 per month for residential customers.
“This proposal allows us to continue to invest in our natural gas system and provide the safe and reliable service that our customers depend on, ” he says.
Ewing says if the rate request is approved, it likely would take effect no earlier than Jan. 1, 2017.
In the request , the utility also proposed a three-year pilot program called a Cost of Service Adjustment that it says would result in smaller annual rate changes, rather than the traditional infrequent but larger rate increases. Kansas Gas Service is the state’s largest natural gas utility, serving approximately 635,000 customers across two-thirds of the state of Kansas.