Colin Sanders, a licensed plumber and father of three, recently “celebrated” his lowest NIPSCO bill yet — a staggering $400, down from his usual $1,100. For Patricia Joyner, a preschool teacher and single mother, the weight of NIPSCO’s high costs hits even harder: She pays over $400 of her elderly mother’s $500 bill, leaving little for her own needs. And 75-year-old professor Tanice Foltz bundles up in sweaters to keep her thermostat at 65 degrees, just to keep her NIPSCO bill around $300.
These are just a few of the stories that poured out during Thursday’s public field hearing at the Gary Public Library’s Carter G. Woodson branch, where residents stood face-to-face with judges and commissioners from the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, determined to demand action against NIPSCO’s proposed $32 monthly electric rate hike.
The proposal comes on the heels of two other recent utility increases. Since 2023, Gary residents have seen NIPSCO raise gas prices by nearly $18, and are experiencing a water rate hike that will reach $12 by next May.
The IURC, which will make the final decision on whether to approve the hike, listened as Hoosiers shared emotional testimony about the crushing financial burden of rising utility costs — stories of financial duress that resonated with a shared plea to “prioritize people over corporate profit.”
“I can’t understand how these guys sit up in these offices, in these $2,000 suits on and Gucci shoes and all good cologne, and sit up and just bleed poor people out of everything,” said Gary resident and pastor Thomas Payton. “Be just to the poor.”
NIPSCO, Indiana’s premier gas and electricity utility company, is the only investor-owned electric company in Indiana.
In September, NIPSCO filed for a rate proposal that would increase monthly electricity bills by $32, but with added fees, could climb up to a total $45 increase, according to an analysis by Citizens Action Coalition, Indiana’s oldest consumer advocacy organization. Already charging the highest electric rates of any utility company in the state, NIPSCO also has a monopoly on the 483,000 electricity customers in Gary and Northwest Indiana.
This has left an extreme financial strain on Gary residents, where the median income is less than $40,000, and utility affordability is the third-highest cause of stress for residents in Lake County, according to a 2022 Franciscan Health Community Health Needs Assessment, as residents struggle to make ends meet for competing needs amid a wave of higher prices for goods and services across the nation.
“With the increase in the cost of food, medications, car insurance … how do you anticipate that a person with that median income is going to be able to meet all of those costs? At some point there will be a choice that has to be made. Do I keep my lights on, or do I buy my medication?” said Mary Cossey, vice president of the Gary NAACP.
“You realize when we came over here on those ships … we came over here with nothing. A lot of us still have nothing. And make sure they keep us where we’ll never have nothing,” Payton continued.
For families like Joyner’s, the effects are devastating. “Please consider your impact on people’s lives,” she said.
Robert Coleman, a Gary resident, pointed to how the pending sale of U.S. Steel could impact on the local economy and called for the presence of Mayor Eddie Melton, a former NIPSCO employee, to speak against the rate hike.
“What if people lose their jobs, with upcoming changes in administration, and principal steel mills that people’s livelihoods depend on? How will they pay their bills then?” Coleman said. “Where is Eddie Melton? He should be here!”
“You all are treating us wrong in so many ways,” he told the IURC commissioners, concluding before starting a chant of “No rate hike” that was joined in by the dozens in the crowd.
As the last attendee rolled in at nearly 8 p.m., residents and local councilpersons steadily filled the room, even those outside of Gary. Hobart council member William Perryman and Jennifer Williams, a former NIPSCO employee from Hobart, had personal connections to the effort.
Williams shared her own hardships as a paying customer of NIPSCO, even as an employee. Alongside the loss of her husband, and the birth of her son, she said the utility company’s rate increases are exacerbating her personal and financial duress. She also helps others with their high NIPSCO bills, enlisting the support of her second husband, who works 70 hours a week at Cleveland Cliffs mill to offset her friend’s nearly $400 NIPSCO bill and take care of her child with disabilities.
“We cannot keep draining the people, our cities, our towns, of money that’s not there,” she said. “It’s getting to the point where the rich can’t even rob the poor, because the poor no longer have anything left to give.”
The IURC will make a decision after the public comment period closes Dec. 12. Until then, residents can submit their written comments on the IURC website to be considered by the Commission.
Correction: Robert Coleman is a Gary resident. He was misidentified in an earlier version of this story.