Cleveland Public Power is proposing to restructure electric rates and raise them over the next three years.
The rate legislation was introduced in City Council this September, but council hasn’t signed off on it yet. If passed, the new rates would go into effect next year and increase in 2028 and 2029.
The news shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to those who listened to CPP Commissioner Ammon Danielson this summer. At an Ohio City meeting about power outages, he said that CPP needs upgrades — but that ratepayers ultimately bear those costs.
The new structure would charge residential customers a flat monthly fee plus three tiers of electric rates, depending on how much power they use.
Starting next year, customers would be charged one rate for their first 250 kilowatt hours. A higher rate would kick in for the next 250 kWh. There would be an even higher rate for usage above 500 kWh. Rates would keep going up the following two years.
Currently, there are just two tiers of rates — one rate for up to 1,000 kWh and another for usage beyond that.
CPP hasn’t said how much the rate change would cost the typical customer.
“Cleveland Public Power is a publicly-owned, not-for-profit utility with a mission to serve the people of Cleveland,” spokesperson Marie Zickefoose wrote in a text message. “Our rates support the cost of providing electric service, maintaining essential infrastructure and meeting the needs of the community we serve.”
Based on Weekly Chatter’s back-of-the-envelope math, bills might rise only by $1 and some change in winter 2027 compared with winter 2026. Next year’s jump in the summer — when power usage goes up — would be higher, between $7 and $8.
Mayor Justin Bibb recently said at a climate conference that Cleveland faces a “cost-of-living crisis.” Back home, CPP still needs to pay the bills, and ratepayers are its major source of revenue.
Cleveland City Council wants more spending freedom
Some Cleveland City Council members say they need more leeway in how they spend the money they receive for small ward projects.
Each year council members receive hundreds of thousand of dollars for their wards. In the past, members have spent discretionary dollars fixing up city parks and buying grocery store gift cards to give away to residents, to cite two examples.
Those dollars must go toward a “proper public purpose.” Council’s spending rules for casino tax revenue — one pot of discretionary money — require staff and the city Law Department to review proposals.
Ward 8 Council Member Stephanie Howse-Jones said this week that staff told her professional development costs didn’t qualify as a proper public purpose. Now she’s proposing to widen the definition of what’s eligible for council funding.
She argued that it was legislators’ job to decide whether projects are a proper use of taxpayer money. She pointed to two Ohio Supreme Court decisions to back up her case.
“Cleveland City Council has the responsibility to determine what a proper public purpose is,” she said. “Not staff, not the Law Department. It’s Cleveland City Council.”
Council President Blaine Griffin said Howse-Jones made some good points. He also cautioned that he wanted to “protect this institution.”
Recent history offers a couple of examples of council members who misused city dollars. Howse-Jones said it wasn’t fair to judge all of council solely by members who landed themselves in trouble.
Griffin said council’s discretionary spending should benefit the community at large rather than just one person or a small group. Ward 1 Council Member Joe Jones butted in to bring up the owner of the Cleveland Browns.
“We help Jimmy Haslam,” Jones said.
Council approved a settlement last year easing the team’s move to Brook Park. Legislation is pending to reimburse the Browns $1.1 million for repairs at the city-owned lakefront stadium.
Cleveland schools CEO takes on the media
Cleveland Metropolitan School District CEO Warren Morgan delivered a vigorous defense of the district’s school closures and consolidations at Huntington Convention Center on Thursday. He said the closures helped CMSD shore up its finances and offer courses such as algebra to more students.
Morgan also spent part of his State of the Schools speech taking aim at local media coverage. He said the district had allowed CMSD’s story to be told in headlines about a shrinking budget and falling enrollment. A collage of headlines about school closures flashed on screens nearby.
“I’m not here to tell you that all of those headlines were wrong, though some of them were,” he said. “I’m here to remind us all that those headlines have only ever served the purpose to hide our truth. And they also create permission for people to continue underestimating and undervaluing our scholars.”
The stories he referenced and other coverage informed the public about school closures and collected a range of views on the moves — which is a far cry from hiding the truth or selling students short.
Most of the cited stories quoted district or city officials themselves. Bibb even put $113,000 in campaign money into a TV ad about CMSD’s dropping enrollment and need to save money.
Morgan said the fact that students are navigating the district’s changes hadn’t made it into “one single headline.” Here’s a story from Signal Cleveland’s Franziska Wild on how students are navigating one school merger.
Afterward, Morgan said he wanted to get the word out about CMSD’s successes, but he conceded that people are skeptical when the district trumpets its own good news. He said they’ll trust a message from neighbors or media.
“We live in a time and age where people are leery of systems, hierarchies,” he said. “Sometimes when the system is the one sharing that message, it’s not a trusted voice. And we have to work hard to make sure it’s a trusted voice.”
