Cleveland Public Power will increase its usage rates for the first time in 40 years beginning in 2025, with another increase coming in 2026.
City council members unanimously approved the increases during their meeting Monday night, following multiple committee hearings and public meetings.
“Council is well-aware of the financial pressures that we face on an annual basis,” said Martin Keane, director of the Department of Public Utilities.
The most urgent pressure, according to Keane, is a $2 million increase – from about $16 million to about $18 million - in the nonprofit’s yearly debt payment starting next year.
According to the utility, residents can expect an average monthly increase on their bills of $4.85 in 2025 and another $3.45 in 2026.
Council held three hearings in committee and there were six or seven public meetings to discuss the increases, according to committee chair Brian Kazy.
“Cleveland Public Power is a great asset to the city of Cleveland,” said Kazy. “I couldn’t imagine what we would be going through had we had just one utility company in the city of Cleveland.”
CPP has about 64,000 residential customers in Cleveland with the rest served by First Energy. The utility’s more than 7,000 commercial customers will see similar increases.
The money will go toward infrastructure improvements and hiring additional customer service employees, said Keane.
The public utility has been criticized in recent years for extended blackouts and poor customer service.
“I think the problem is over the years that we did not collectively upgrade the system the way it needed to be upgraded,” said Councilmember Michael Polensek. “I’ve experienced outages in my community when the weather is perfect, when the weather is absolutely perfect.”
The utility will start making upgrades to infrastructure – substations, transmission lines, the IT system – immediately, Keane told council.
