Following a scathing report accusing the Holly Springs Utility Department of chronic mismanagement in its duty to deliver adequate services to its ratepayers, the Mississippi Public Service Commission has voted unanimously to schedule a show-cause hearing to seek additional answers.
During its August public meeting held Tuesday in Jackson, the commission announced that HSUD leadership has been ordered to appear in the city of New Albany’s municipal courtroom on Sept. 4 at 9 a.m. Officials within the local utility provider, which services just north of 12,000 customers, are being called to answer to the report Silverpoint Consulting conducted into HSUD’s scope of service.
“There is a lot of work to be done up there. Our goal is to make sure that the crisis is solved and that the people up there — in all of those counties, and even into Tennessee — have a path forward,” Northern District Public Service Commissioner Chris Brown said. “That’s our goal. That’s my commitment, and our commitment is that we’re going to see this through, that the people of the Holly Springs Utility District have a way out of this.”
Residents in the service area have long complained that power outages have been frequent and disruptive, with no answers for the occurrences. Taking charge of what he reported to be a crisis, Brown petitioned the state legislature to pass Senate Bill 2453 during the 2024 session. The bill expanded the commission’s authority over public utilities.
Brown and his commission colleagues utilized the new power to have Silverpoint look into complaints levied against HSUD. While at first, Holly Springs officials were able to skirt subpoenas and a show-cause hearing facilitated by the commission, a change in leadership within city hall proved effective in moving the proverbial ball in the right direction.
During April’s municipal primaries, Charles Terry, a former Marshall County supervisor, defeated incumbent Democratic Mayor Sharon Gipson. Terry went on to win the mayor’s seat, and, according to Brown, has been much more cooperative with independent investigators and regulators in their pursuit to get to the root of HSUD’s problems.
“The (new) mayor did not create this issue. The aldermen there now did not create this issue. This issue has been decades in the making,” Brown added. “Not putting money back into a system has let it become more and more derelict. It is in a critical state at this point.”
In its finalized 75-page report, Silverpoint found that several years of mismanagement caused the system to spiral into a degenerative state. The firm’s investigation of HSUD encompassed a broad range of areas, including system operations, vegetation management and other preventative maintenance, emergency preparedness and response, system planning and analysis, and support functions such as metering and billing.
The report found that vegetation was growing along power lines, substations were not properly tended to, and right-of-ways were not cleared. To make matters worse, during Tuesday’s meeting, Brown reported that HSUD owes the Tennessee Valley Authority, the utility’s wholesale power provider, more than $6 million in unpaid invoices and also owes contractors more than $3 million for uncompensated services.
But the days of the public’s voice not being heard are over. Brown emphasized that he’s hoping for a large turnout at the upcoming show-cause hearing consisting of those directly impacted by HSUD’s systematic failures, allowing them to weigh in on the future of the utility provider. The commissioner also touted his central and southern district colleagues’ support in getting to the root of the decades-long problem.
“We heard [the public], and we care,” Brown told SuperTalk Mississippi News after the meeting. “We’re all three ‘one Mississippi.’ We beat with one heartbeat. The people of Holly Springs are suffering, and they’re having to deal with unreliable energy.”
