$1-Million Power-Bill Surge Shocks Saddleback

Saddleback College in Mission Viejo projects that higher electricity rates will cost the school $1.17 million more this fiscal year than last, leading to a hiring slowdown and threatening campus projects.

The college’s average monthly electric bill rose 127% from July through December, compared with the same period a year earlier. The campus paid more than three times as much in December, alone, an increase of $180,603.

The increases were despite a drop in electricity use every month from July through November through conservation measures, among them asking the staff to use fewer lights in classrooms and offices, and requesting that employees not bring coffee pots or space heaters from home.

Electricity usage increased slightly in December, but the college held a week’s more classes in the last month of 2000 than the year before, college president Dixie Bullock said Monday.

For the first half of the fiscal year that ends in June, Saddleback already has paid $585,629 more than a year earlier.

Saddleback projects electricity costs to more than double for the fiscal year.

“Financially, it’s killing us,” said John Ozurovich, director of campus facilities.

Through conservation efforts, Saddleback has saved about a month’s worth of electricity usage, college spokeswoman Susan Lemkin said.

“I guess one could say, ‘Thank goodness we’ve put in these measures, or we’d really be up a creek,’ ” she said.

Besides the increased electrical rates, rising natural gas costs are expected to stick the two-year school for an extra $82,829, a jump of 55%, for the fiscal year.

The increases have forced Saddleback to postpone several projects, Bullock said. “It makes it difficult to go ahead with initiatives when you don’t know if you’re going to be able to pay for them,” she said.

A committee last week recommended the college add positions for secretaries, groundskeepers and custodians, but at a cost of $500,000 the first year, Bullock said, those hires will have to wait.

Bullock said the school has already begun the process of adding 16 faculty members. Though hiring is not imminent because it is time-consuming, with candidates being interviewed by faculty and administrators, Bullock said that if the energy crisis continues, money may not be available to fill all the positions.

Other projects that could be delayed are building a road around the college and tearing down boarded-up portable buildings.

If the energy crisis had not burned so brightly, Bullock said, Saddleback also might have rented space off campus to expand its class offerings.

Saddleback is not alone among colleges that have been forced by the energy crisis to take dramatic steps.

During power emergencies, Cal State Fullerton has closed its library and faculty and administrative offices at 4 p.m.

Chapman University in Orange is among many large employers that signed contracts with Southern California Edison for cheaper power in exchange for agreeing to cut usage during power crises. When such users fail to cut usage, they pay enormous surcharges.

The state Public Utilities Commission suspended that program last week.

Golden West College in Huntington Beach has closed its campus eight times since summer to avoid thousands of dollars in additional payments.

Unlike Chapman, Saddleback gets its electricity from San Diego Gas & Electric. Ozurovich said the college is one of the biggest electricity users in Mission Viejo.

Irvine Valley College, its sister campus in the South Orange County Community College District, has not had nearly the increase in electric bills because it gets its power from Southern California Edison, Ozurovich said.