HARDWICK – General Manager Sarah Braese continues to be employed by Hardwick Electric Department (HED) according to employee information provided by the department. Last week Scott Johnstone, HED’s interim general manager, said he is not “an employee at HED.” Morrisville Water and Light (MWL) is making me available through a contractual agreement very similar to the one we used in 2024.”
That employee information provided by HED shows a manager and three employees in the business office and a utility operations manager with five linemen and two utility workers.
A special meeting of Hardwick Electric Department (HED) Commissioners has been scheduled for Thursday, Dec. 11, at 5:30 p.m., in the HED office at 123 N. Main St. “Not much of it will be in open session as they [commissioners] will be having an executive session,” Johnson said.
A closed executive session follows a time for public comments, then there’s a time reserved for “Potential actions to come as a result of executive session.”
Two items following that are first, “Approval of Management Services Contract” and then, “Appointment of General Manager.”
Other conversations surrounding HED have involved a request from the Vermont Department of Public Service (DPS) Commissioner Kerrick Johnson for information from the state’s small utilities, possible mergers and a 13.24% rate increase that took effect earlier this year, but has not yet been approved by the state’s Public Utility Commission (PUC).
Johnson, who was appointed just a year ago, said he’s been looking at ways to perform his department’s primary function of being the public’s advocate in working with the Vermont Public Utility Commission, which serves as the decision-making authority in regulating Vermont utilities.
Part of that is working to move toward customers being able to have similar expectations of service across all the state’s utilities. One way to achieve that is creating “greater operational cohesion to better serve ratepayers, he said.
He had been working on suggestions in financial areas to evaluate good sustainability practices; operational areas impacting reliability; personnel issues involving safety, training, leadership; finally, at succession and governance.
When recent irregularities regarding the Hyde Park electric utility arose, Johnson felt it was an appropriate time to move forward with gathering information, beginning with the small utilities.
About the request coming to HED, Johnstone said, “My view is that this is a healthy review and process and embrace being a part of it (in all the places I’m currently helping out). Any organization can always stand to have objective new eyes taking a look at their practices and health as part of a continuous improvement environment.”
The DPS’s Johnson said there are many things that impact small utilities and a public assessment can help his department do its work and help the utilities in finding ways to improve theirs. “There’s more avkue that can be squeezed out of the existing system.
“My expectation going into this for Hardwick, based on what I’ve seen and observed in 2024 and then quite recently, is the review will find an organization on solid footing with room for improvement around investments in our grid,” said Johnson.
“HED has some modernization needs on our electric grid to meet the customer needs and regulatory and policy requirements of 2025 and beyond. Having others weigh in on this matter (and any others they identify) is more than helpful.”
Johnson at the DPS said he is not suggesting utilities merge. He’s been involved with Vermont utilities in his work with the Vermont transmission utility, VELCO, for many years and seen previous Commissioners fail in pursuing mergers. His goal is to “achieve critical mass in conversations about collaboration [between utilities].”.
About mergers conversations, Johnstone confirmed Johnson’s comments, saying, “As to your merger question, these discussions actually were initiated by the municipal utilities themselves. We’ve not been pressed on this matter by the state at all that I am aware of. Formal merger, in all it’s forms, is one option, but conversations have not begun on that front. Rather, I would categorize the interests as seeing how regionally located municipal utilities might work better together to improve services, reduce outages and be more efficient. This is not to say that utilities will not merge at some point, but rather that this outcome is one of a wide array of options being and to be explored.”
Johnstone, offered some history of those conversations. “For HED, the Commission[ers] first discussed this with Morrisville when I was interim for Hardwick in 2024. It was my view at the time that HED needed to focus on rebuilding its line-worker crew and then consider what it may want its future to look like from a position of strength and health.
“A year later, the commission is again expressing interest in a wide exploration of options of how we all may work better together from operating agreements to respond to outages more quickly all the way through the various options of merger.”
To that end Johnstone said, “Morrisville Trustees have agreed to engage in this conversation, despite feeling its utility is in good health today, for two reasons: we should always be looking for ways to increase the value proposition of services for our customers and the coming decades will, in our opinion, see serious transformation of our utilities (technology, new programs, emerging customer expectations, data analysis, etc). MWL believes this, to be done well, may require greater scale that it enjoys today in order to create the expected results in a cost-effective manner in this on-coming future state.
“Neither party has an expectation that any agreement must come out of this first effort of talks. Each is healthy today. If we find some common paths forward, great. If not, there may be other options, or it may simply not be time yet.”
As the rate case works its way through the DPS, an evidentiary hearing is scheduled for March 2026, so it’s likely to be close to, or more than a year, before it is approved in full, or revised by the PUC.
Johnson said that did seem an excessively long time for the process, which potentially added an unnecessary burden to taxpayers. Ratepayers will be entitled to a refund if it’s not approved in full, but he also said, with pressure on utility rates, the requested amount might well be appropriate.
After sharing details of employees and potential talks about HEDs potential cooperation and/or merger with other area utilities, Johnson said, an understanding that the utility exists to serve the public is important in managing it.
“So, transparent dialogue of what is going on simply must be a core component of any path forward on this front.”
Paul Fixx is editor of The Hardwick Gazette and lives in Hardwick.
