Over the past year, Rhett Diez has paid for his power through TECO’s budget billing program.
The program offers customers a flat-rate monthly bill based on past usage.
New monthly electric bills for participating customers are calculated by taking the total payments from the previous year and dividing them into 12 monthly installments.
For Diez, that meant a fixed electric bill of $170 a month for his family of five. Diez is a U.S. Navy veteran and lives with his wife and three kids in Brandon.
He said he was shocked to receive an oustanding $682 bill from TECO.
Dated Nov. 9, the notice gave Diez the option to clear the nearly $700 bill in a one-time payment, or accept a new monthly electric payment of $282 for the next 12 months.
“Each year on your enrollment anniversary, we review your account. We have completed that review and determined that your Budget Billing amount needs to be adjusted,” according to the notice.
If he did neither, by the end of December, Diez risked having his power shut off.
“I would have never, ever gotten enrolled if there was supposed to be an amount due at the end of the program,” he said. “It makes no sense at all to me.”
On its website, TECO advertises the budget billing program as a “free and easy way to take out the highs and lows” of monthly electric expenses. At the bottom of the same webpage — in a hidden dropdown menu — the second to last bullet point discloses: “Your monthly amount will be recalculated after one year on the program…”
Diez said he was never given a written disclosure of terms. Before enrolling in the program, he said he spoke at length with a representative on the phone and was not warned of substantial back-payments.
TECO spokesperson Cherie Jacobs said annual recalculations for customers in the budget billing program account for usage and rate increases. Budget billing customers, like Diez, may have been initially shielded from higher power bills in 2023, considering TECO's rates increased and power consumption climbed through the record-hot summer, she said.
But, in the end, she said budget billing customers used that power and still have to pay for it.
Jacobs said it’s unfortunate Diez did not understand how the program worked.
She said customers enrolled in budget billing must also pay any outstanding deferred amount before leaving the program.
After raising concerns, TECO put a one-time courtesy credit toward half of Diez’s deferred balance. He’s working with Hillsborough County’s home energy assistance program to cover the difference.
Jacobs confirmed that Diez is now unenrolled from the program.
“I’ll never do this budget billing again as long as I live in this county,” Diez said.
Gabriella Paul covers the stories of people living paycheck to paycheck in the greater Tampa Bay region for WUSF. She's also a Report for America corps member. Here’s how you can share your story with her.
