No since my electric + gas bill is about $106/month with budget billing. My comcast bill (extended cable + internet) is $107 something a month. My cell phone bill is $50 a month. This adds up to $263/month, or the national average.

This is one case where it's nice to be below average. eileen

Unregulated markets my friends. Dont believe all the big government hype non sense. California has unregulated market when Enron made billions off of them, and now Constellation has one of the guys from Enron running the show with his new perfected system. But if you pay the right people off you can get whatever you want in this country, as we are finding out on a day to day basis. But hey aslong as state officials are rich thats all that matters.

I guess the utility bills must
fall in line with the highest
property taxes in the nation

MISLEADING HEADLINE. Seems like everyone especially the kids are runnig around with expensive cell phones and many homes in the hood have Satellite dishes.

What would you suggest as a headline? - eileen

Maybe it has something to do with very old, poorly insulated row houses.

$353.93 is a small townhouse. I know some people paying $500 or more for the BG&E bill.

I have one friend who does not use lights, heat or TV and he pays $400 bucks a month in a brand new house. BG&E sucks!

Row houses are very efficient energy users. They have shared walls, few windows, limited square footage, and multiple floors using the same heat.

I think the headline suggests that the services being paid for are absolutely necessary and not optional, i.e. cable. It could lead one to think that city residents are being discrimated against (again?) and we all have heard a lot about the poor, downtrodden people of the city who can't afford healthcare but have a brand new car, cable and cell phones.

Have to agree with John on this one, Eileen.

That's fine. I just wondered what would be a better headline. - eileen

The key comparison you cite for your headline and content is not correct. Here is the critical text from the website:

"The WhiteFence Index is the only place on the Web where you can find averages for utility bills in more than 20 cities. The cities that were chosen are some of the largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) in the United States."

Website: http://www.whitefenceindex.com/

Out of the 21 cities surveyed, we pay the most for utilities and essential home services.

BTW, my BG & E bill in Towson last month was $420; I paid $225 for combination cable, internet and home phone and $350 for the many phone lines I have on our cell plans (we're with Verizon, I have 6 lines, 2 plans, all phones have insurance - we've needed it many times, and text messaging plans). How about a story tomorrow on how Towson residents are being overcharged on their utilities?

My gas, electric, phone, internet and cable tv average $205 monthly in a 1200 square foot house in Baltimore. This does not include mobile phone. I haven't looked at the survey website, but cable and phone service packages can vary widely. Or, maybe we're just using too much energy.

This survey lacks details. The website has no information as to source data or how the calculations were made. In fact, some pages don't even work. A very unreliable source.

I was able to dig the method to their madness, linked off of the previous page I included in my above post. They attempt to show how they arrived at these numbers and their methodology seems pretty shaky. First off, they base the costs for the "essential home services" off of the "hundreds of thousands of orders placed on any one of WhiteFence's Web sites". Before this post, I hadn't even heard of this site and wonder if an aggregator like this gets a big piece of the pie, order wise. Additionally, the gas and electric usage appears to be a swag. Rates are public knowledge, but usage is another matter all together.
http://www.whitefenceindex.com/about-wfi.html

Yes, I sure do believe it. Three letters - BGE. Frankly, I'm shocked that anyone is shocked by this. Cell phone plans are universal from coast to coast, and a state in the mid atlantic isn't exactly in the middle of nowhere so cable shouldn't cost more than anywhere else.
It's BGE, frankly I think that they are abusive of their power and need to be run out of town. The execs need to be serving jail time, like the people who have made gasoline so expensive and the Wall Street morons that have destroyed the economy. Free market is a great economic model, but unrestrained power always leads to coruption.
This is survey is very true and not a coincidence.

It's funny that you constantly hear complaints in fora such as this that utilities are too high in Maryland, and that taxes (property) are outrageous. This is all a product of a State government run exclusively by democrats. Wake up people, you are the ones that keep voting these bozos into office that are causing the problems that you continually gripe about. If you want to make a difference maybe you should educate yourselves a bit more on your candidates of choice...

Sweet! So that means that we in Upper Fell's Point pay even more than the Baltimore average, given that the power goes out everytime it hits 88 degrees or drops below 32.

Its amazing... all the republicans can say is no thats not true, the site it lying, your facts are wrong, blame it on the democrats. How bout you offer some real facts as an arguement. Im sure half of you morons probably work for a lobby group who is against regulated market. In a perfect world unregulated market is the way to go, unfortunately we will live in a world of liars, corruption, cheaters, and people who attended liberal arts colleges and got BS degrees who think they are the smartest people in the world. We cant be trusted, and thats teh facts. Its not republicans or democrats faults. Its the american mentality. Make buck however you can, and dont worry about who your stabbing in the back along the way. Only care about yourself.

First off... Ehrlich deregulated BGE, not the Dems. Second... Yes I believe it. A $200/month power bill for a one bedroom apartment. Really?

Jeff Cohen's remark about property taxes inspired me to spend a few minutes searching the web for information about Maryland's property tax burden.

I found an article on MSN Money that ranked Maryland 13th in property tax burden for its median tax rate, 29th as a percentage of home value, and 21st as a percentage of income.

You can see their chart here: http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Taxes/Advice/PropertyTaxesWhereDoesYourStateRank.aspx.

I found an article on Forbes.com entitled "Who pays America's highest property taxes." No Maryland county appeared in the top 100 on the list.

You can see their chart here: http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/22/taxes-homes-property-forbeslife-cx_mw_0122realestate_table.html.

We can debate methodology, and we can debate the validity of those numbers -- I'm not holding out these statistics as the gospel truth. I am, however, questioning the factual foundation of Mr. Cohen's gripe about Maryland having the highest property taxes in the nation.

The survey fails to include water and sewage so it's less than useful.

CJohn ---

I don't think you're correct. BG & E was deregulated at the behest of the state legislature in either 1999 or 2000 but to take effect in 2006 (?), so Erhlich was not the guilty party but merely the person who had to shoulder the blame. It must be nice to vote on something one day, to take effect at some point in the future, to leave the leader of the time when it took effect to blame for something he had nothing to do with.

Unregulated monopolies. Comcast has all the cable; BGE has all the gas and electric. The original deal was that in return for a monopoly, a company would agree to a government role in setting prices. Now the utilities have eliminated virtually all oversight of their rates, and yet they still have their monopolies. Why limit themselves to $354/month? Why not make it $500? There's virtually no competition and most people require the services.

If it doesn't include oil heat, my monthly bill is about $240 - $100/month for electricity+gas, and $140 for comcast cable/phone/internet. Of course this doesn't include heat for me - with oil, I suppose it would average out to around $340/month.

Real Facts. The majority of Democrats under the watchful eye of paris spendening and his cronie mike miller slammed through deregulation in the late 90s. They new at the time that Baltimore/Washington didn't have the true distribution grid to offer real competition. Now we get hosed because the Dems are not very good leaders in this state and the republicans can only offer PJ Pipkin. Hold on to your shorts folks..

cjohn didn't get it quite right. Deregulation occurred during the Glendening administration, not the Ehrlich administration. The Republican caucus in the legislature voted unanimously or nearly unanimously in favor of deregulation, and the Democratic caucus in the legislature was split. The attempt to re-regulate this year did not fall along party lines - the bill had bipartian co-sponsors and bipartisan opposition. So it's not really fair to say this is a Democratic or Republican thing... it's a little bit more nuanced than that.

Before living in Baltimore, I lived in downtown, Bethesda, Md. The rent was twice as bad, everything else was a whole lot worse also. You Balti-morons are just looking for sympathy!

cjohn, interest idea that Erlich is the one responsible. Your should do a bit of research and get your facts straight.

Time to get your Reality Corrected.

1. From a story in the Baltimore Sun:
'State utility regulators told lawmakers today that an agreement to move to deregulation in 1999 saddled Baltimore Gas and Electric customers with $1.15 billion in costs in exchange for rate cuts that amounted ... '

Interesting, the deregulation occurred in 1999. Who was governor of the state in 1999?

2. It appears, through research, that Parris N. Glendening was Governor of Maryland, January 18, 1995 to January 15, 2003. That means in 1999 he was office.

Interesting how the Dems have been in control of the Maryland Legislature for decades and a Dem was in the Governor's office when the deregulation occurred. Sorry, those are the facts.

The Dems in Maryland got us into it and have done squat to get us out, oh that's right O'Malley was going to take care of it. Didn't he campaign on that platform? He sure did and he got into office and found out what we all (those of us with sense) already knew, he did (and could do) NOTHING.

Nice try at an attempt to pawn the problem off on the Erlich administration, to bad you didn't clean your feet before inserting them into your mouth.

Your Reality is now Corrected.

Amen to Danny. Is there a study about metropolitan areas that love to hear themselves whine? Because Baltimore would rank at the top of that list, too.

I believe it...No, I am living it! If I had of known about all the hiden costs of living in "affordable" Baltimore, I would have just stayed in DC! I would have come out cheaper with a 250K 2 bedroom condo after you expense the cost of paying to have an alarm (that is stupid - because you need it). Increased water, and BGE I swear is satan incarnate! Redlined insurance on your home and car. I used to tell my friends to come here...Not anymore, this place is woefully mismanaged and overburdened with all sorts of schemes to get money out of residents who can ill afford it!

Interesting that it lumps up all those "utilities" together. This article was obviously written to assist O'Malley in his most recent extortion attempt of Contellation Energy. It's also worth noting that BG&E is cheaper than it's Maryland provider counterparts.
Average price per KWH by State: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table5_6_a.html

OK, so what is the comparison just on the energy side - a service that we have no choice but to use. It's an easy measurement of price per kilowatt hour ($/kWh) and I'm sure some curious reporter at the Sun could get the info for the top 100 cities?? I bet Baltimore is still at the top of the list!

I can't believe some of the comments I see on this site. I am happy to see some people actually research facts instead of just blindly blaming one entity (BGE) for all issues. BOB UU…FRANKLY, you get billed for the amount of electric and gas you use each month. If you use a lot of energy expect your bill to be higher. Why don’t you scale back your consumption and I would bet your BGE bill would reflect this. Here’s an idea…try not doing everything during peak rate time. I find it funny how the people who complain about high electricity bills are usually the same people who have the AC set to run 24 hours a day at 65 degrees, and they want to have 4 – 50” TV’s running while they decide to take 45 minute showers. Simple formula USE LESS = PAY LESS. Do the math. Oh I almost forgot, your point about Cell phones being the same nationally….wrong….so wrong…Plans aren’t always the same across the country. I know I worked in the business for 5 years. You want to talk about an abuse of power? Let’s talk Comcast, $60/month for just high-speed internet….$160+/month for TV/Phone/Net….I can’t wait for some adequate competition to hit Baltimore. I’m not interested in DSL or Dial-up…At least BGE will let me decide who I want to buy my electricity from! Educate yourself Bobby….

I live in Upper Fells Point too and have to comment on this one from your blog:

Sweet! So that means that we in Upper Fell's Point pay even more than the Baltimore average, given that the power goes out everytime it hits 88 degrees or drops below 32.

Posted by: Molly | July 16, 2009 2:00 PM

We recently had a 15 hour power outage that cost me a fridge full of groceries, much frustration, and contact with Delegate Hammen’s office to complain about the seven extended outages we have had in the past two years when the weather was actually fine. Got home the other night at 7pm and my clocks were flashing “12:39” which means it had been out for some period of time and had come back on half an hour before I got home. I feel like we ought to be able to market our house as Green because the power just shuts down randomly saving tons on energy bills!

Chris

This survey sounds just about right. I pay $199/month for BGE budget billing for a 1500 sq ft. house. Plus about $150/month for Verizon cable/internet/phone. That doesn't even include water or cell phone usage.

Sadly, that's not considered steep for Baltimore Co. The weather has helped this summer, but we never crank up the A/C, and don't have any of those lush, extravagant premium cable or internet packages. We just have what we need to surf the web, watch an O's game or chat on the phone from the relative comfort of (a 78-degree) home.

While people continue to quibble over which party in power is responsible for such ludicrous rates, the utilities, whether they are monopolies (BGE) or not (Comcast, Verizon, etc.), are making a mint.

While I doubt this survey shows supreme accuracy, I think it probably isn't that far from the truth. Moving to Maryland over 10 years ago I quickly realized that higher utility bills, even higher property taxes for people who live in the city like me, and a corrupt and broken city and state government are doing their best to strip residents of anything and everything they have. And yes the morons either look the other way or re-elect them into the same positions of authority. My rediculous taxes get me the #2 murder capital in the entire nation....woo hoo!!! Great conversation starter with friends who live elsewhere isn't it?
I for one can't wait for the job market to improve so I can get outta here!!

I wish the Sun would do more to scrutinize the dealings of BGE/CEG/Shattuck's-Cash-Cow. My monthly bill has jumped up considerably since the de-regulated rates kicked in, and yet Mayo Shattuck would have us believe that poor-li'l-ol' CEG can barely make ends meet (to the benefit of Warren Buffett's high-priced bail-out).

Something stinks here. De-regulating the energy-provider industry in Md. in the late '90's was a foolish endeavor to hop on the trendy bandwagon spearheaded by the notorious likes of Enron. The barriers to entry in this industry are formidable, thereby keeping BGE a de facto monopoly.

Bob, so sorry about that sir. That last post was meant for TED. Deepest regrets Bob. FRANKLY I'm sorry

I live in a row home with energy efficient windows, attic vent and insulation, radiant barriers in attic and UV reflective film on south facing windows, all the rooms have compact florescent lights and I am about to get an on-demand hot water heater which should save me another $20-40 per month. I have trees and shrubs along the outside of the house to shade and act as a wind break during the winter.

TV/Internet: I have basic everything: no caller ID, no HD TV with 300+ channels.

So for all this I pay around $143.00 for electricity, natural gas, phone, Internet and television.

Personally I am SHOCKED that Constellation is disputing the survey (insert sarcasm here).

Where are all the people who trumpeted deregulation earlier this decade?

I feel the survey is an accurate representation. But, instead of comparing monthly bills with many questionable variables to pick holes at. Just show what Baltimoreans and Marylanders are paying for electricity per kilowatt hour. We pay more than double what our neighboring states are paying.

I don't think it could just be BGE. For me that bill has gone up about a third in the past 10 years. But our houses tend to be large and if we use either heat or A/C all of the time, that represents a lot of energy use. I have a center-unit rowhouse and practice Scrooge-like use of the heat and cooling. My summer bill averaged under $60 last year. It is a bit less this year because I haven't even been tempted to run the A/C.

The utility bill is actually a little less than combined phone and Internet service-- which irks me in a way because the phone bill was $23 ten years ago. That's the arena in which I feel I am paying more and getting no benefit.

Since the data is not from a random survey, it's probably not close to being a statistically valid sample.

When Comcast didn't have competition, their service was bad, and they raised their prices every year. When Verizon came in with FiOS, and gave them legitimate competition, prices have come down, and the type of services have gone up. Competition works, but no company is going to come in and invest in a business where lawmakers continuously threaten to change the rules of the game. Funny how O'Malley touts MD's savings at a government level by shopping around for the best electricity rates, but he does not want to offer the same opportunity to the average MD citizen.

I can't say that I know who to blame, or that I even care to cast blame around. All I know is that I live in Mt. Washington and my BGE bill is $200 a month (budget billing option) for a 700 sq. ft apartment and I'm almost never home. The AC or heat is OFF all day and the lights are turned off when I don't need them. That's not even talking about the water/sewer bill, cell phone and cable/internet/phone line. Rather than blaming old mistakes on anyone, I want those in charge NOW to explain how I pay so much when I use so little...

I remember a rate increase right after Christmas and the BGE representative said it was because people were all the new game systems, TVs and other electronics. I got no new electronics, but my bill still increased by $30 a month. It all seems like a bunch of lies to make even more of a profit.

Now they want the government to subsidize $200 million so they can install "smart meters" so we can see a $100/year rate drop in 2012 (while also paying additional costs for the meters). BGE is beginning to remind me of Walmart when talking about shady business practices.

No surprise there. Five years ago I managed to get my electric bill down to near $100 a month, when everyone had moved out on their own. Now, with only rate hikes, it's shot up to near $300, what I used to pay for a family of five, and I have oil heat and oil hot water. So much for the benefits of deregulation. What a bill of goods they sold us.

i was living in Tennessee when Glendenning signed the deregulation deal. This was always home though, and I was watchful of the goings on , even when I lived elsewhere.

When I returned in 2002 , I bought a house in the city, totally rehabbed it, (with no grant money), and was rewarded by having my tax bill tripled.

Utility rates since last year have gone thru the roof, I had already lefty the city for AA county, (to escape OMalley's mismanagement), and some of the evils followed me. The rates currently being foisted on electric consumers are obscene. Shattuck is screaming that BGE/Constellation is drowning in debt, but he's still pulling in a 8 figure salary, and so are many other top execs. This while they lay off nearly 1000 blue collar workers.

Its high time that the state stand up to these monopolies, and demand that there be energy co-ops like the TVA. While living in nashville in an all electric home, I never had a bill over 100.00, and when you called the electric company , you actually got to speak to a pleasant human being. These days short of a live wire in your living room (from off a pole) , no human is available at BGE.

Its high time that the citizenry of Maryland demand that the PSC and state government act in the interest of the real taxpayers, the citizens.

It is just as crooked with Delmarva. We do not get the publicity that BG+E does but our rate just increased over 2% and Delaware Delmarva went down 1%
Our PSC can be bribed and is.
Also if you look at the Delaware bills, they lack many fees mandated by Maryland.

moved from balto. 4 years ago to pennsylvania, went from 2200 sq' house that was 3 years old to a new house that is 4500 sq' my gas and electreic bills are about 10% less than I paid in balto with a house in pa. over twice the size!!!!!!!

Ehrlich did not deregulate BGE. He was a US Congressman in 1999..that's a national assembly dumbass. Also, the majority of people in the MD General Assembly were Democrats. It's idiotic comments like this, that say all there is to say about the intelligence of citizens in the State of Maryland. This is the reason we're in such big trouble. Ehrlich only served 4 years as Governor. The State has been run by Democrats for as long as I can remember. I didn't know Ehrlich had so much power to cause all of MD's problems in such little time. Wake up idiots, or nothing will change

I live in the city and have a very high BGE bill although I use it minimally.

Secondly, what does living in the "hood" as poster Eileen describes, have to do with people having a satellite dish. I have one because I WORK EVERY DAY! As do several other people in the hood. Also, didn't the tv signal thing just go into effect, causing people to have to find alternative ways to see their tv shows. Stop being so judgemental.

Oh yes...I completely believe that we have the nation's highest utility bills. Strictly speaking in terms of gas, water & electric (not counting any "unneccessary" bills like cell phone, tv, internet, etc), I pay ~ $300/month to BGE for my 3 bedroom apartment (in which we're hardly ever there, so there is minimal use of lights, etc for about 80% of the day), and ~ $250/month for water & gas. So $550/month for just the "basic" utilities. It's ridiculous.

My average monthy utility bills, Gas & Electric, cable, phone and water combined are $480.00. There are only two of us in the home and I live in a row house. I am on what BG&E call their budget billing program and still have to pay $300/month. I think this is legal robbery.

Its disturbing to me how little hard evidence there is in any of these comments. Whether your electric bill is $100/mo or $400/mo is irrelevant to anything. There are only two things that are relevant, how much electricity are you using, and how much are you paying for that electricity.

I think Maryland has gotten a raw deal compared to what we could have, thanks primarily to Mike Miller (the president of the MD Senate), the rest of the Maryland legislature who went along with it, and of course Paris Glendenning who signed this travesty into law. Ehrlich and others have had the opportunity to fix things and decided not to.

Maryland's electric rates are higher than the national average, but not by a lot. Most of the North East is considerably higher than us. Many of the state's that have lower utility bills still are regulated, which essentially keeps prices artificially low. Surprisingly, BG&E's natural gas prices are rather reasonable (probably because they aren't allowed to make a profit and are incentivized by the PSC to keep them low).

As for the survey, it is, of course, worthless. Why on Earth would you lump cable, phone service, electricity, natural gas, etc, all into one? That prevents any sort of specific comparison, especially since some of these services are more... optional, than others.

So for the people who are whining about your high utility bills, grow up and learn some higher level reading and thinking skills and figure out why your bill is so high and correct it. If you don't use heat, AC, lights, etc, there's no way your bill is $400 unless something is very very wrong.

We live in a small cape cod and paid over $500 this winter with BG&E. This summer we have not used our AC at all because we're afraid of what are bill will look like. It's sad when you can't aford the simple pleasures of life such as heat or AC.

They pay the highest utility bills because most of the residents are in Rehab., jail, on welfare or are illegals. That leaves the rest of the residents and State Taxpayers to pay their bills.

Why is this so hard for liberals to accept? I love the way they are on here trying to make out the high bills as being the fault of people using to much energy.

I know it's killing you guys that not everyone wants to live like you, eat like you, or liver their life just like you but this isn't Nazi Germany-yet.
We know you're doing you're best to get there. Hitler hated Capitalism too.

Am I wrong, or are businesses still allowed to make a profit? BG & E is a business and to use their product, you must pay a price. A necessary product, one you can't live without you'll cry? Yes, but there are other providers, no? Why is it that people feel as if businesses' profits must be regulated by the very government that voted to deregulate their pricing?

How can you include cable, phone, and internet in this article? It is the Baltimore GAS and ELECTRIC - those are utilities, not the rest. My Comcast bill is an option in my life. My house is 4000 square feet and I pay less than 300.00/month for BGE. CABLE IS NOT A UTILITY - LET'S SEE WHERE COMCAST RANKS IN THE US AND WE'LL SEE IT'S THE HIGHEST, NOT BGE BY ITSELF.

I feel this article is true. I have a home that has everything unplugged and the air conditioning turn off as well as the hot water heater. The only thing that I can tell that is plugged in is the large appliances. No body has been living there for the past 2 months and my BG&E bill is still $350/mo. When the house was occupied my average bill was hovering around $600/mo for a 2 bedroom ranch on the Baltimore/Harford Co. line with approximately 1,800 SF. To me this is highway robbery. I had the same size house 5 yrs ago on the eastern shore and my BG&E bill was around $250 to $300 with the house occupied. I am totally baffled by the cost of utilities these days. Something must be done about these outrageous costs, especially with how so many people out there are hurting financially.

Eileen - thanks for posting the info we dug up as an update up in the blog post so it wouldn't get lost in the shuffle! At a minimum, this post caught our attention and started up some interesting dialog.

Kathleen - how does the split look for your bill when it comes to gas vs. electric? Are you signed up for budget billing where they attempt to normalize your monthly bills regardless of your month-to-month usage?

If your fridge/freezer were the only things you knew about that were plugged in and your hot water heater was turned off at the breaker box (big stand-by losses at a HWH if not, especially of the thermostat is set too high!), check into getting refridgerator/freezer thermometers to make sure the temps are optimally set.

We all need to focus on the big number on the bill calculation to keep our bills low. This is the usage number. I personally signed up with WGES for electric supplier service to try to minimize the per kilowatt hour rate, but we're talking about less than a couple of pennies per KWH here. They add up, but for a 1000 kwh bill we're only talking about $20 or less. The real gains in lowering your bill are only made through lowering usage.

I thought O'Malley was going to solve everything.

The government and private utility comes are working hand and hand to stifle competiton. As long as BGE is the distributor of the gas and electric they get paid no matter what. The people need to attend the PSC meetings and see how they are wine and dine by the utility companies. Do you really think you have a say in Maryland?