New York State Senator Peter Oberacker is calling for an immediate investigation into the unfair and unaffordable utility billing practices. Above, the senator visited Delaware-Chenango-Madison-Otsego BOCES earlier this year. (Photo from facebook.com/Peter4Senate51)

CHENANGO COUNTY — New York State Senator Peter Oberacker (R, 51st Senate District) is seeking an investigation of New York State Electric and Gas (NYSEG) Corporation and Rochester Gas and Electric (RG&E) Corporation after a recent audit cited 128 recommendations for both companies to rectify.

“Instead of meaningful results, we received canned PR responses: ‘It was a colder winter,’” said Oberracker. “Let’s be very clear: a 16% colder winter does not justify a 300% spike in a family’s utility bill.”

On May 19, the New York State Public Service Commission released the audit report of New York State Electric and Gas (NYSEG) Corporation and Rochester Gas and Electric (RG&E) Corporation.

The report's findings indicated the companies showed a lack of transparency of utility allocations, inappropriate controls for customer service, and did not comply with regulatory requirements for reporting response times in emergency situations. The audit suggested the companies file a plan showing corrections by June 18.

Senator Oberacker decided he is not going to stand by and wait for NYSEG to submit their plan and is moving forward with his own investigation.

Additional findings and violations in the report included lack of maintaining customer billing records and billing procedures, ineligible board of directors due to their positions as officers or directors of unregulated affiliate companies, and NYSEG not meeting enforceable reliability service standards for six years consecutively.