FERC Accounting 101

Mr. Steele has over 40 years of experience in public utility regulation in which he has acquired an extensive knowledge of electric, gas and telecommunications industries.  Mr. Steele has expertise in utility accounting, revenue requirements, cost allocation, class cost-of-service studies, rate design, cost-of-capital, alternative forms of regulation, mergers and acquisitions. 

Prior to forming Bill Steele and Associates LLC in May of 2012, he spent 34 years with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) as an advisor to the Commissioners. Mr. Steele served as an advisor to the three Colorado Public Utilities Commissioners and the Commission’s six Administrative Law Judges. Mr. Steele demonstrated his broad expertise in the areas of electricity and natural gas utility regulation, which included the areas of revenue requirements, cost-of-service analysis and rate design.  He also served in the role as the Commission’s subject matter expert in utility accounting and finance matters.

In addition, Mr. Steele’s advisory responsibilities included the training of new Commissioners as well as conducting in-house training courses on various utility issues, such as how to apply traditional regulatory principles to emerging issues in public utility regulation.

Prior to becoming a commission advisor, Mr. Steele supervised the Financial Analysts in the Commission’s Fixed Utilities Section for 17 years. His duties in that role included the training of new financial analysts, supervising audits of utility accounting systems, management practices, special investigations, as well as, providing expert testimony in over 50 regulatory proceedings on policy issues concerning accounting, financial, and management issues.

On January 5, 2018, Colorado Governor Hickenlooper by Executive Order (A 2008 002) appointed Mr. Steele to serve as a representative of small business on the Utility Consumers Board (UCB). Mr. Steele as a board member of UCB, provides to the Office of Consumer Counsel general policy guidance on matters that involve utility regulation and legislative matters.

Since 2009, Mr. Schulz has been the Utility Rate Analyst for the Montana Consumer Counsel working in the areas of revenue requirements, cost allocation, cost of capital and rate design. Mr. Schulz helps coordinate and edit the testimonies of other expert witnesses appearing for the Consumer Counsel in Montana utility dockets and also personally testifies as an expert witness before the Montana Public Service Commission. Mr. Schulz graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. degree in Economics from Colorado State University and holds an M.S. degree in Accounting from the University of Virginia. He is the first recipient of the Graduate Certificate in Public Utility Regulation and Economics from New Mexico State University and is one of the early recipients of the Certificate of Continuing Regulatory Education, which is endorsed by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) and awarded by the Institute of Public Utilities at Michigan State University.

Currently, Mr. Schulz is a member of the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates’ (NASUCA) Accounting and Finance Committee and is a member, and the former Meeting Registrar, of the NARUC Staff Subcommittee on Accounting and Finance where he has presented as well. Mr. Schulz is also a member of the Society of Utility and Regulatory Financial Analysts (SURFA) and holds the Certified Rate of Return Analyst (CRRA) designation awarded by that organization. Since 2014, Mr. Schulz has been on faculty at the NARUC Utility Rate School. He holds a Montana CPA license and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.