Where are the Commissioners?

Since ratepayers are getting porked for expensive travel, where's the rest of the Commission?

Did they approve these expenses? Is anyone asking?

We miss out on millions of dollars in energy grant money, yet are funding expensive trips?

At times like these, I sure miss Jim Butler!

Middleboro utility chairman racks up $12K in travel expenses
Gas & Electric official’s expenses have accrued over past eight months

By Alice C. Elwell
Enterprise correspondent
MIDDLEBORO —
The chairman of Middleboro Gas & Electric’s board of directors has racked up $12,000 in ratepayer-funded travel expenses over the past eight months, including luxury hotel accommodations, laundry and maid service, according to the town-owned utility’s recently released financial documents.

The travel expenses of Donald R. Triner Sr. came to light as part of a broad release of public records from the utility last month. Those documents include the company’s budget, which had been requested by the finance committee, and the contracts of employees, which had been requested by the town treasurer/collector and town clerk.

Triner’s travel costs run large and small. They include:

A five-day conference in San Diego in July. Hotel and airfare cost $3,895, and a rental car cost $479.

A September 2010 conference in Phoenix where Triner was reimbursed $3 for coffee and a newspaper, $4 for a magazine and $55 to “Paul the Chauffeur.”

$26 for breakfast and $37 for laundry during a January stay at Sanibel Harbour Marriott Resort and Spa in Fort Myers, Fla. Accommodations ran $237 a night. The hotel bill of $1,838.99 was charged to Mrs. Betty Triner, with a note at the bottom that rewards points would be credited to her account.

$1,500 for a stay at the St. Gregory hotel during a four-day trip to Washington, D.C. in February. The bill included $215 in maid service and tips.

The $12,000 total does not include Triner’s most recent trips to conferences in Washington, D.C.

Triner said his attendance at such conferences across the country benefit the utility and the customer. Topics discussed include climate change, pipeline safety, legislation on energy and natural gas and low-income energy assistance.

“All these things we work on to help lower rates,” Triner said. “The more networking you do with other utilities across the United States, the more you get to see what other utilities are doing.”

Former selectman Lincoln D. Andrews said that justification only goes so far.

“There comes a point of diminishing returns,” Andrews said.

Taunton’s municipal lighting plant has had a moratorium on travel for the past year and a half, spokeswoman Cynthia Argus said.

“It was our way of keeping ahead on the expenditures,” she said. “We were looking for a way to trim. A moratorium on travel seemed an obvious way to trim costs.”

Taunton’s residential cost for electricity is 11 cents per kilowatt hour – five cents cheaper than Middleboro’s.

Triner was elected to the commission in 2003 and brings with him 32 years in the gas industry.

Suzanne Dube, a member of the Finance Committee, has reviewed the utility’s public records and last week gave her colleagues a report on the utility’s spending practices and policies.

“I am pleased that this process has initiated conversation within the entire community,” she said. “A collaborative, inclusive approach is the key to facilitating a dialog that will yield positive outcomes which are mutually beneficially to all.”

Copyright 2011 The Enterprise. Some rights reserved

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