In the Matter of The Empire )
District
Electric Company for Authority ) File No. ER-2014-0351
To File Tariffs Increasing Rates for ) Tracking No.: YE-2015-0074
Electric Service Provided to Customers )
In the Company’s Missouri Service Area )
ORDER SETTING PROCEDURAL SCHEDULE
Issue Date: October 28, 2014 Effective Date: October 28, 2014
The parties filed their Joint Proposed Procedural Schedule. The Commission will approve the proposed procedural schedule.
THE COMMISSION ORDERS THAT:
1. The following procedural schedule is adopted:
EVENT DATE
Case Filed August 29, 2014
Direct Testimony (Non-Empire
Parties, revenue requirement) January 29, 2015
Data Request Response Time
Becomes 15 calendar days with 8 calendar
days to object January 30, 2015
Direct Testimony (Non-Empire parties,
class cost of service and rate design) February 11, 2015
Local Public Hearings (subject to Commission Order) February – March, 2015
Preliminary Reconciliation (not to be filed – to be
Provided to all parties) February 13, 2015
Technical Conference February 17 -19, 2015
Preliminary Issues List (not to be filed – to be
Provided to all parties) March 3, 2015
Rebuttal Testimony (all
parties) March 9, 2015
Data Request Response Time
Becomes 5 business days with 3 business days to object March 10, 2015
Empire to Provide True-up Information to all Parties March 16, 2015
Surrebuttal Testimony (all
parties) March 24, 2015
List of Issues, Order of Witness, Order
of
Cross
Examination March 27, 2015
Statements of Position March 27,
2015**
Final Reconciliation (to be filed) April
1,
2015
Evidentiary Hearings April
6 - 10, 2015
April 13 - 17, 2015
True-up Direct Testimony* April
30,
2015
True-up Rebuttal Testimony* May 7, 2015
True-up Evidentiary Hearing May 13, 2015
Initial
Post Hearing Brief (All
parties) May 15, 2015
Reply/True-up Briefs May 29, 2015
Operation of Law Date July 26, 2015
*No party shall revise or change that party’s methods or methodologies in true-up testimony.
** This date was changed to provide adequate opportunity
for review by the Commission.
2. An evidentiary hearing shall be held on April 6-10 and 13-17, 2015, beginning at 9:00 a.m. at the Commission’s office at the Governor Office Building, 200 Madison Street, Jefferson City, Missouri, Room 310. Should it be needed, the true-up evidentiary hearing shall be on May 13, 2015, at the same time and location. This building meets accessibility standards required by the Americans with Disabilities Act. If additional accommodations are needed to participate in this hearing, please call the Public Service Commission’s Hotline at 1-800-392-4211 (voice) or Relay Missouri at 711 prior to the hearing.
3. All parties shall comply with the following discovery procedures:
(a) All parties must comply with the requirements of Commission Rule 4 CSR240-2.130 for prepared
testimony, including the requirement
that testimony be filed on
line-numbered pages.
(b) Although not
all parties may agree upon how each issue should be described or on whether a
listed issue is in fact a proper issue in this case, the parties shall agree upon
and file a list of the issues to be heard, the witnesses to appear on each day of
the hearing, the order in which they will be called, and the order of cross-examination
for each witness. The list of issues should be
detailed enough to inform the Commission of each issue that must be resolved.
The Commission will view any issue not contained in this list of issues as uncontested and not requiring resolution by the Commission.
(c) Each party shall file a simple and concise statement summarizing its position
on each disputed issue.
(d) All
pleadings, briefs, and amendments,
shall be filed in
accordance with Commission Rule 4 CSR 240-2.080. Briefs shall follow the same list of issues as filed in the case and must set forth and cite the proper portions of the record concerning the remaining unresolved issues that are to be decided by the Commission.
(e) If part of testimony or documents prefiled and served upon the parties before
a hearing, a party
need
only provide a copy of the testimony or document to the court reporter for marking as an exhibit. If not prefiled and served upon the parties, then a party who has a document marked for use at the hearing shall have sufficient copies of the document to provide a copy not only to the court reporter, but also to each of the Commissioners, the presiding officer, and counsel for each other
party.
(f) All parties shall provide copies of testimony (including schedules), exhibits
and
pleadings to other counsel
by electronic means
and
in electronic form
essentially concurrently with
the filing of such testimony, exhibits or pleadings where the information is available in electronic format (.PDF, .DOC, .WPD,
.XLS, etc.). Parties are not required to put information that does not exist in electronic format into electronic format for purposes of exchanging it.
(g) Documents
filed in the Commission’s
Electronic
Filing and Information System (“EFIS”) shall be considered properly served by serving the same on counsel
of
record for
all
other parties
via
e-mail
(h) Any data request issued to or by the Staff shall be submitted and responded to in
EFIS. However,
if the
technical limitations of EFIS make
such
submission or response difficult, the parties to the data requests
may
agree upon an
alternative method of submission
and
response, or an alternative
method of submission and response may
be
ordered by the Commission.
Regarding Staff-issued data requests, if the description contains highly confidential or proprietary information, or is voluminous, a hyperlink to the
EFIS
record of that data request shall be considered a sufficient copy.
(i) Subject to paragraph (h) above, counsel for each party shall receive
electronically from each other party serving a data request, an electronic copy of the text of the “description” of that data request contemporaneously
with service of the data request. If a party
desires the response to a data request that has been served on another
party, the party desiring a copy of the response must request a copy of the response from the party answering the data request.
Data
requests, objections to data requests and notifications respecting
the need for additional time to respond to data requests shall be sent by e-mail to counsel for the other parties.
Counsel may designate other personnel to be added as contacts
for data requests, but shall assume
responsibility
for compliance with any
restrictions on confidentiality. Data
request responses shall be served on counsel for the requesting party, unless waived by
counsel, and on the requesting party’s employee or representative who submitted the data request, and shall
be
served electronically, if feasible
and
not voluminous
as
defined by Commission rule.
(j)
Until direct testimony is filed on January 29, 2015, the response time for all
data
requests shall be twenty calendar days, with ten calendar days to object
or notify the requesting party that more than twenty calendar days will be needed to provide the requested information. After January 29,
2015, until
rebuttal testimony
is filed on March 9, 2015, the response time for data requests shall be
fifteen calendar days to provide the requested information and eight calendar days to object or notify
the
requesting party
that
more than
fifteen calendar days will be needed to provide the requested information. After rebuttal testimony is filed on March 9, 2015, the response time
for data
requests shall be five business
days to provide the requested information and
three business days to object or
to notify the requesting party that more than five business days will be needed to provide the requested information. If a data request has
been responded to, a party’s request for a copy
of
the response shall be timely responded to, considering
that
the underlying data
request has already been responded to.
(k) Work papers
prepared in the course of
developing
a witness’ testimony (including schedules) and exhibits shall not
be
filed with the Commission, but shall be submitted to each party within two (2) business days following the filing of the particular testimony, unless a party has indicated that it does not
want to receive some or all of the workpapers.
Workpapers containing highly confidential or proprietary
information shall be appropriately marked.
If there
are no workpapers associated with the testimony, the party’s attorney shall so notify the other
parties within the time allowed for
providing those workpapers.
(l) Where workpapers
or data
request
responses
include models or spreadsheets or similar information originally in a commonly
available format where inputs
or parameters may be changed to observe changes in inputs, if available in that original format, the party
providing
the workpaper
or response shall provide this type of information in that original format with
formulas
intact.
4. The Test Year shall run from May 2013 through April 2014, with an updated test year of August 31, 2014, and a true-up of December 31, 2014.
5. This order shall become effective when issued.
BY
THE COMMISSION
Morris L. Woodruff
Secretary
Kim S. Burton, Regulatory Law Judge,
by delegation of authority
pursuant to Section 386.240, RSMo 2000.
Dated at Jefferson City, Missouri,
on this 28th day of October, 2014.