Airport fixing 30 years of incorrect power bills

For more than 30 years, the Havre City-County Airport has been paying power bills for nonexistent services, airport and city officials say.

Airport manager Tony Dolphay discovered about six months ago that the airport has been paying NorthWestern Energy, formerly Montana Power Co., electric bills for 163 unmetered runway lights that don’t exist.

A 1985 lighting project converted the runway lights from unmetered to metered. The runway lights bill went from a consistent flat rate to a metered rate — electricity was now charged according to how much was used. Minutes from an April 18, 1985, airport board meeting say the new system would turn on the runway lights once it became dark and off when daylight hit, all with the help of a photo-electric cell sensor. Power bills would be only for those times when the lights were on.

But instead of paying solely for the new metered services, the airport continued to receive and pay bills for the old unmetered services in addition to the metered ones, Dolphay said.

A second major light conversion happened in 2000, when the lights became pilot controlled. This latest conversion enables pilots to operate runway lights from the airplane, a change that “drastically” cut electric costs, Dolphay said.

Yet the unmetered light bills for services that hadn’t been provided since 1985 continued to be charged and paid up to 2016.

The three-decade accounting fault was found while the bills were being scrutinized.

“We were looking at ways to save money, is how it came about. We were looking at the bills and we saw some unmetered lights and we were wondering what’s going on,” Airport Board Chair Bob Breum said.

Dolphay, who’d been on the board for three to four years before taking over as airport manager in July, said he’d always thought the power bill was too high. As a business owner he said he has always scrutinized his bills and tried to keep costs low. Once he became airport manager, Dolphay said, he had time to investigate the high power bills.  

“Started actually looking at the entire bill and going, ‘These lights don’t exist,’” he said. “So I got a hold of NorthWestern and we started pulling meters and proved that they don’t exist.”

Dolphay said the airport has some unmetered lights — five yard lights — but the bill clearly shows an additional 163 unmetered lights. Dolphay subtracted the fee for the five yard lights from that of the 163 unmetered lights, came up with a monthly total, multiplied it by 12 and then multiplied that by 31, the number of years this has been happening, to come up with an idea, of the total amount of money he said is overcharged to the airport.

Dolphay said airport officials and NorthWestern representatives are discussing restitution numbers.

“We’re looking to work with our power company. There’s some figures out there, but no concrete figures,” he said.

NorthWestern spokesperson Butch Larcombe said the power company has been asked to credit the airport with about 30 years of bills, about $90,000. But that’s not going to happen, he said.

“We told them we weren’t going to pay that. We thought the responsibility for them to check into their bills and notify us of changes was on their part,” he said. “They did, and when we found out about it, we immediately checked into the situation and found out what the billing issues was.”

Dolphay said the regional representative from NorthWestern he has been working with asked for documents proving the airport notified the power company about the lighting changes if there was going to be payback for so many years.

“Was NorthWestern ever notified the lights didn’t exist?” Dolphay said. “I don’t know. I can’t find documentation where they were showing that.”

Larcombe said, once the problem had been found, NorthWestern remedied it and credited the airport the difference for all of 2016.

Breum, Dolphay and Havre City Mayor Tim Solomon, who also sits on the airport board, have confirmed NorthWestern’s agreeing to pay the difference for 2016.

Solomon said airport officials are hoping for a “reasonable settlement” and there is no talk of a lawsuit. It’s difficult to reach an exact number of restitution, Solomon said, because nobody knows exactly what happened and how this has been missed for so long.

They said how this was missed and who is to blame, if anyone at all, is unclear to everyone.

“There is not one single blame out there,” Dolphay said. “The power company installed the meters. The engineer installed the lights. The contractor and subcontractor lined up and assigned the work.”

Dolphay said the outdated nature of the glitch makes it difficult to find out what went wrong. He said he does not even know who the contractor or engineer was, and he is not sure if past airport members even got to see a breakdown of the power bill as he does.

Breum, who’s been chair of the board for the last 26 years, said it could have been an oversight by the engineer who installed the original lights, or something board members have missed.

“It got overlooked from the start and it never came to light,” Breum said.

Breum and Solomon said they are glad Dolphay found the glitch. The city and county-owned airport does generate money from services such as Cape Air paying terminal rental fees, Breum said, but the airport wouldn’t be able to sustain itself without taxpayer money.

It’s unfortunate, Dolphay said, that this happens, but things like this are probably common on many boards.

“We all lead busy lives, and when we serve on a volunteer board, we can’t invest the time to figure stuff out,” he said.

Dolphay said the airport is integral to Havre, showing a list of different flights that use the facility. If he had to single out any kind of flights, it would have to be the life support medical flights, he said, adding that those are what he is most proud of.

Dolphay said there’s a lesson to be learned from 30 years of paying for nonexistent services.

“If you’re going to take the position and sit on the board, do your due diligence and represent your people on that board,” he said. “Don’t just sit on there to be on there. Actually make it a working part of your day.”