KEYS Utility Board Appoints Chair and Vice Chair; Approves Fiscal Year 2027 Budget

In an organizational meeting during a regularly scheduled Utility Board meeting on Wednesday, September 9, the Board appointed Pat Labrada to serve as its Chair and Mona C. Clark to serve as Vice Chair. Labrada has served on the Board since 2020, and Clark has served on the Board since 2004.

During the same meeting the Board also held a public hearing and approved Keys Energy Services’ (KEYS) Fiscal Year* (FY) 2027 budget and five-year financial plan. The approved FY 2027 budget for KEYS totals $127.2 million.

This budget supports KEYS’ strategic goals and objectives, which include an emphasis on storm hardening and maintaining reliability of the transmission, distribution, and generation facilities.

As a result of the approved budget, effective January 1, 2027, an average residential customer, consuming 1,215 kilowatt-hours** (kWh) of energy per month, will see their bill go from $185.75 to $187.74, a 1.1-percent increase.

In other business, the Board:

• Approved the renewal of Property, General Liability, Automobile Liability, Physical Damage Comprehensive and Collision, and Workers’

Compensation insurance with Preferred Governmental Insurance Trust, administered by Public Risk Underwriters, Inc., in the amount of $624,603.

• Approved the unit price purchase of 105 ductile iron poles for inventory stock and the storm hardening distribution pole replacement project from GHMR/McWane Poles in the total estimated amount of $575,650.
• Awarded the contract for the replacement of the Computer Room Air Conditioner units to Gibson Air Conditioning & Refrigeration, LLC in the amount of $395,010. The units have reached end of life and replacement is required for maintaining the precise temperature and humidity required for reliable operation of data center equipment.
• Awarded the unit price contract for pole inspections to Osmose Utilities Services, Inc., in the estimated amount of $245,763. The scope of the contract includes the visual inspection and supplemental sounding and boring of all distribution poles North of Shark Key in 2027. In 2006, the Florida Public Service Commission mandated that investor-owned utilities inspect distribution poles every eight years. KEYS adopted the same inspection cycle as a best practice. KEYS last inspected all distribution poles North of Shark Key in 2020, and all poles from Shark Key South in 2023.

The regular meeting of the Utility Board took place in the Utility Board Room of KEYS’ Service Building at 1001 James Street, Key West at 4:00 p.m., on Wednesday, September 9.