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Committee advances bill to give nonmunicipal ratepayers a voice on municipal utility boards
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Summary
The House Finance, Ways and Means Committee advanced House Bill 25‑92 on April 15, 2026, after adopting amendments that would allow residents served by municipal electric systems but living outside city limits to qualify for board representation under specified thresholds and freeze certain annexation‑related transfers while policy details are worked out.
The House Finance, Ways and Means Committee moved House Bill 25‑92 to the calendar and rules on April 15 after adopting two amendments that reshape how municipally owned local power companies allocate board seats for customers who live outside city limits.
Sponsor Chairman Jermaine Boyd described the bill as addressing “a disparity that we have with municipally owned local power companies,” including a mechanism to give a board seat to ratepayers who live in counties that receive service from a municipal utility but are outside the municipality. Under the bill as explained to the committee, an outside county with at least 3,500 ratepayers would qualify for a single board member; if that outside population reached 130,000, it would qualify for a second seat. The bill applies to cities with populations of 350,000 or to cities located in counties with that population, based on the 2020 census.
Leader Lambert argued the change was driven by recent emergencies that demonstrated gaps in representation. “When you’ve got over 50,000 people that are served by a utility that they don’t have a board member on there, it’s really hard to get answers … this solves a lot of problems and mainly, it just gives a voice to folks so that they don’t have taxation without representation,” Lambert said.
An amendment offered by Chairman Vaughn (drafting code 017943) was adopted to “freeze the boundaries” of where municipal power companies and co‑ops serve while lawmakers continue discussions about divestiture and implementation mechanics. Vaughn described the amendment as a temporary pause on annexation‑driven transfers of assets so the legislature can set “ground rules” for how a county or cooperative might divest or acquire service territory.
The committee voted to adopt the amendments and then favorably moved HB 25‑92 to the calendar and rules. The clerk recorded the final tally for the bill as 22 ayes and 5 noes. Chairman Boyd moved passage on the committee action.
What the bill would do: it sets numerical thresholds (3,500 and 130,000) for outside‑county representation, makes appointment of outside‑county seats permissive and generally assigns appointment authority to the county mayor, and protects existing representations where outside areas already hold board seats. The Vaughn amendment suspends forced asset transfers tied to annexation while lawmakers refine the policy.
The bill now goes to the full House calendar and rules process; no final enactment or implementation timeline was set in committee.
