California Water Service Group

Hello and thank you for standing by. My name is Regina and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the California Water Service Group third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. I'd now like to turn the conference over to David Healy, Vice President, Corporate Controller. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Regina. Welcome, everyone, to the 2022 Third Quarter Earnings Results Call for California Water Service Group. With me today is Marty Kropelnicki, our President and CEO, Tom Smagle, our Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Paul Townsley, Vice President, Corporate Development, and Greg Milliman, Vice President, Rates and Regulatory Affairs. Replay dial-in information for this call can be found in our third quarter earnings release, which was issued earlier today. The replay will be available until December 26, 2022. As a reminder, before we begin, The company has a slide deck to accompany the earnings call this quarter. The slide deck was furnished with an 8K this morning and is also available at the company's website at www.calwatergroup.com. Before looking at this quarter's results, we'd like to take a few moments to cover forward-looking statements. During the course of the call, the company may make certain forward-looking statements Because these statements deal with future events, they're subject to various risks and uncertainties, and actual results could differ materially from the company's current expectations. Because of this, the company strongly advises all current shareholders as well as interested parties to carefully read and understand the company's disclosures on risk and uncertainties found in our Form 10-K Form 10Q, press releases, and other reports filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. I'm going to pass it over to Tom to begin.

Thank you, Dave, and welcome everyone to our third quarter earnings call. I'm going to be going through, in fact, all of our presenters today will be going through the slide deck with reference to page numbers, so you can follow along, and I believe on the webcast, the slides will track with us. So I'm gonna start on page five of the slide deck for a quick summary of the financial results for the third quarter. You can see the numbers there that our operating revenue was up 9.6 million or 3.7%. Our operating expenses were up 15.8 million or 8.5%. The result of those two items is that our net income was down 6.5 million or 10.5%. and our earnings per share were down 17 cents from $1.20 to $1.03. I do want to highlight on the sheet, and we'll be talking about it later, that our CapEx was up in the quarter from 69.2 million to 77.5 million. Similarly, on slide six, our year-to-date financial results, we can see net income is down 21.2 million on a year-to-date basis, and that's 50 cents on a year-to-date basis in an earnings per share sense. Turning to slide seven for a little bit of the color on the quarter. So we've been talking all year about our unbilled revenue and about the changes in valuation of our non-qualified plan assets. And in this quarter, we actually saw an increase in our unbilled revenue accrual. That is largely because the accrual was so low in the last quarter, and we talked about that in the last quarter. So we saw unbilled revenue go up this quarter. However, we continue to see a softness in that mark-to-market valuation of our non-qualified plan assets, and that was a $2 million change there. The operating expenses went up, as I mentioned earlier. Due to inflationary factors, for the most part, we saw wage increases, increases in the cost of goods and services. We saw two items that are probably pretty bouncy, and we did see them in the quarter. Our uninsured loss expense was up in the quarter. That is when someone is injured or makes a claim against the company. That's somewhat volatile. And then we did increase the reserve for bad debt, and we'll talk about that a little bit later in the call, but that is an increase as compared to the Q3 of 2021. For the year to date, really the bulk of the description year to date in the change in earnings has to do, again, with the unbilled revenue and with the change in the valuation of our nonqualified plan assets. You can see of the $21.2 million decrease in net income attributable to CWT, it was $9.4 million reduction in unbilled revenue, $11.4 million associated with the plan assets. Again, the unbilled revenue, as we mentioned last quarter, we expect to normalize by the end of the year with a change on a year-to-year basis, no more than plus or minus $2 million. So we'll continue to evaluate that as we go forward. I did want to highlight actually for the year to date that our financing program has been going very well. We issued 470,000 shares during Q3, and we issued 2.2 million shares in the last 12 months in our ATM programs, and so very, very happy with the results there. won't dwell on the bridges those say essentially the same thing that I was just saying in visual form and then on our call this morning we're going to talk quite a bit about our regulatory affairs particularly in California on slide 11 I'm going to start by giving you an update on the California cost of capital case so there was no update during the quarter from the administrative law judge as as those who were on our call last quarter will know The case was submitted in June. All the parties completed their testimony and the briefs and the reply briefs. Those were all completed in the summer. And so we're all just waiting on the administrative law judge to issue a proposed decision and then the commission to issue a decision and a case. The calendar is getting a little tight here. There is still a potential that the CPUC could issue a final decision this year. But in order to do so, we would have to see a proposed decision from the judge really within the next two and a half weeks because the commission voting meeting schedule in December is very light due to the holidays. We would expect that if we got a proposed decision after November 15th, we would not get a final decision in 2022. And so it's looking increasingly likely that a decision in cost to capital will come later than the end of the year. Because of the delay in issuing a decision, I know that many of the analysts have been focused on obviously interest rates going up in the economy since the time that we submitted. We can't determine how the Commission is going to evaluate those changes. We know that the testimony that was made in June did include some evidence of the inflation and the interest rate changes that had happened up to that point. but we're not certain how that might impact, and we're not certain about the impact of potentially the water cost of capital adjustment mechanism and whether that would trigger or not depending upon the final outcome of the case. And just a reminder, as we've been saying, that given our financing program, the proposed cost of debt in our application was quite a bit lower than the last adopted cost of debt And what that means is when the case is eventually decided and when the commission sets a starting date, at that time we will have about an $11 million reduction to the debt cost. And that we expect to be passed through to customers. We don't yet know what the timing is on the effective date of a decision. And so the company has not reserved for that amount or any other amounts associated with potential outcomes of the Costa Capital case. Next, I'm going to turn it over to Greg Milliman for slide 12 to give an update of our General Ray case.

Thank you, Tom. As you can see a lot on the slide already, we did reach a settlement with the Public Advocate's Office primarily on non-revenue items that was filed with the Commission. The case is now in the hands of the ALJ to write the decision. but it's unlikely we will get that decision before the end of this year. Because of that, we plan to file for interim rates in the fourth quarter to be effective January 2023. Those rates are subject to refund and will be trued up based on the final outcome in the decision. Moving to slide 13 with a focus on decoupling. A significant change for Cal Water starting in 2023 is the loss of the mechanism to decouple sales from revenue, known as the RAM. To that end, the settlement with public advocates reduces our revenue volatility and has realistic water production costs. Further, in the event that the drought persists, the Commission has the mechanism that allows water companies without RAMs to track lost revenues due to the drought in a memorandum account for potential future recovery. So we'll be filing to open that as well before the end of the year. And then I'll turn it over to you, Marty.

Great. Thanks, Greg. And I'm on the bottom of page 13 for everyone that's following along. Some of the big news for us that came out on the last day of the quarter, September 30th, was Governor Newsom signed into law for the state of California, Senate Bill 1469. Senate Bill 1469 ran largely unopposed as this is a bill we've worked on the last couple years, which is a big win for our water industry within the state of California. The bill does not mandate decoupling, but the bill clearly says it's the intent of the legislature to ensure that Class A water corporations are authorized to establish revenue adjustment mechanisms that provide for full decoupling of sales and revenue in order to incentivize conservation. So we spent the last two years working on this bill with the other water companies, industrial water companies in the state of California. It was nice to see the governor sign that into law and put on the books. Now, shortly thereafter, in fact, last week, on the 21st, the CPUC filed a motion with the California Supreme Court to dismiss the court case that we filed that's centered around decoupling. And there's a very finite detail here. The court case that was filed with the state Supreme Court wasn't necessarily about the final decision to eliminate the pilot program of decoupling. It was really about the lack of due process, that the Commission didn't follow their own process to make that determination. And that, of course, cost us or we didn't have the opportunity to get adequate information on the record for the commission to make an adequate decision on decoupling. So there's a finite detail there. At this point, I still believe the state Supreme Court case will move ahead since the court did accept the basis of our argument, which was lack of due process, although the CPC did file a motion to dismiss. So we are responding to that, but based on where we are right now, I believe the court case will continue to move forward on the basis of the original filing, which was lack of due process. So big win in the state legislature with Senate Bill 1469. We're continuing with the court case in the state Supreme Court about lack of due process. Moving on to the next page. Page 14 to talk about the drought. Let's start off talking about the left hand side of the slide where we are with our memo account. If you remember in 2021, the governor declared a drought emergency that allowed us to establish a memo account. to track incremental costs associated with our drought response. So things that we're doing above and beyond what's in our current rate case to respond to the drought. For Q3, our incremental drought expenditures were about $400,000. So they're expensed in the period. They go to the memo account. And our total in that memo account since its inception in 2021 is about $1.4 million. So there's $1.4 million of drought-related items that we've expensed in the current period. that we'll seek future recovery on at a later date. Moving on to the right-hand side of the slide, conservation's working, and this is why we think decoupling is really, really important. In California, customer usage is down about 19% in Q3 as compared to our adopted numbers. That's down about 7% compared to 2021. Earlier this week, we filed our numbers with the state of California, which we're required to file every month. And average consumption was down about 10% in the month of September alone. That's the average number. I want to give you a sense of the variance, though, with some of the districts that had large savings. Westlake in Southern California, their consumption was down 36.6% in the month of September. Palos Verdes, which is south of Westlake on the LA Peninsula, their consumption was down 25% in the month of September alone. And Los Altos, which is just down the street from us here in Silicon Valley, their consumption was down 26% in the month of September alone. So again, this is why we believe decoupling is really important. That second bullet point, given the declines that we've seen in consumption, given our drought response program, the balance in our decoupling account is now $94.8 million. So we'll be filing to recover that at a later date. Looking at the NOAA forecasts for the fall and for the winter, now that we're officially in fall, they're forecasting La Nina conditions, which tends to be warmer weather for us, which means less snowfall and potentially less rain. Obviously, we'll have a good look at winter between now and when we announce earnings the end of February. While we're hopeful that we have a wet winter, the maps are showing something to the contrary. Again, that's why the decoupling mechanisms are so important, because it allows us to aggressively pursue conservation for our customers and helps ensure resiliency of our water supply. So the continued drought conditions going into 23, we expect them to continue. And again, in the face of climate change, decoupling is really important. Water resiliency is really important. So if you read our ESG reports, we're going to continue on the path we're on to promote conservation and make sure we have a resilient supply going into the future years. Going on to the next slide, slide 15, to talk about the capital program. Despite a lot of headwinds, a lot of economic headwinds, our capital program remains mainly on track. We had an increase of 12% year-over-year on our capital investment program, or we also call it our infrastructure improvement program. And we've had a 6.9% year-to-date increase in our capital investment. Happy with how that's going, but certainly as we deal with supply chain headwinds like all of us are dealing with right now, the longer those headwinds continue, the more likely at some point they will start affecting us. We continue to monitor the supply chains, and the procurement team here at Cal Water and the engineering team has done an outstanding job at doing a lot of pivoting and bending and turning and thinking about new ways to stay ahead of the supply chain issues. In particular, ductile iron pipe. It's now a 12-month lead time to get ductile iron pipe, and when you have a large main replacement program, that starts to pose some challenges. So we continue to look for areas that we can reduce risk in our supply chain, including the potential for stockpiling raw materials used in our capital production process and stockpiling those for future days and future weeks and future projects ahead. As we move into the fourth quarter, just to remind everyone, construction activity can be adversely affected by weather, but based on the La Nina conditions, I think we're going to have a fairly decent fourth quarter when it comes to capital investment. I'm going to hand it over to Tom to give you an update on the customer COVID debt updates.

Thank you, Marty. So as you'll recall us saying at the end of the second quarter, We were authorized finally by the California Public Utilities Commission and by the governor to start the process of shutting off customers for non-payment. Remember that during the COVID pandemic, we had been held to not shutting anyone off from March of 2020 until the summer. And while we had gotten California state aid to pay a number of customer bills last year, that reduced the number of delinquent accounts, it's still going to take us months and maybe many months to address the remaining 90-day delinquent accounts. And so we are working through that process now, starting that process late this summer. We did have some success in the quarter, reducing the balance that is 90 days past due by 3.5 million. That's an important step for us. It's a good sign for our program. In comparing our third quarter of 2022 to the third quarter of 2021, however, in that quarter last year, we had recorded the state aid. And therefore, the customer delinquency balances had dropped dramatically in the third quarter of 2021. And that's why you see an increase in our bad debt reserve this year. We're very encouraged by the collection program that we have in place now. We do expect that to continue and accelerate as we get into the fourth quarter and into the first quarter of 2023, and we look forward to talking about how successful we are in bringing down that bad debt balance next year. Next, I'd like to turn it over to Paul Townsley to give us a business development update.

Thank you, Tom. I'm on the next slide, which is an exciting slide. We continue to set a brisk a very brisk pace in our utility acquisitions with 10 announced deals in process. As you can see on this slide, we have five new announced deals this year. They include the Camino Real utility in Texas, the Kukuyula South Shore Community Services, otherwise known as KSSCS on Kauai in Hawaii, the Monterey Water System in New Mexico, the Bethel Green Acres System in Washington, and the Shroes Water System also in Washington. In addition to those five, we also have three other deals that have been approved by the respective state public utility commissions, and we're going through the final closing process. Those include HOH Utilities, again in Hawaii, Kea Ho Wastewater on the Big Island in Hawaii, and the Skylanda water system in California. And then finally, on the slide, you'll see that we have closed two deals so far year to date. They include the Animas Valley system, also known as Morning Star Water in New Mexico, and the Rail Yard utility in Texas. So all of these kind of all put together, they represent up to 8,600 new water connections and about 10,000 new wastewater connections that are under process this year. As you can see, we're growing in each of the states that we have utilities, and that our recent entry into the state of Texas already looks quite promising in terms of growth. Finally, our acquisition pipeline remains robust, and we anticipate continued opportunities coming next year. And with that, Tom, I will hand it back to you.

Thanks, Paul. So as per usual, I've included in our slide deck for the quarter the projection and progress of our CapEx and our rate base. Once again, the yellow bars on slide 18 and 19 represent what we filed for in the California general rate case. And so obviously with that case pending and no settlement on CapEx for the case, We don't have a way yet to adjust those numbers to what might be authorized by the Commission. But I do show and reflect here the $222 million year-to-date CapEx in our total systems throughout 2022. Marty, I'll send it over to you for a wrap-up.

Great. Thanks, Tom. In closing, Q3 was about in line with what our expectations were within the company. Obviously, we're not immune to the inflationary issues that we're all experiencing, and we're seeing inflationary creep move into our P&L. That, coupled with the regulatory lag that we would typically see in the third year of the rate case, it certainly is affecting our profitability, but we are performing where we have budgeted to, so we're very happy with the outcome where we are in the third quarter. The market head and winds, we expect that to continue as what's in the press release. And as Tom mentioned, we do have certain plan assets associated with a non-qualified retirement plan. While the changes get recorded below the line, we're still required to essentially evaluate and value those assets at the end of every quarter, and it flows through below the line on our P&L. So There's no buying and selling of assets there. It's just the change in asset value given the volatility that we're seeing in the market. And we expect that's going to continue into 2023 as we deal with some of these strong economic headwinds that we're dealing with. As we go into the fourth quarter and into 2023, what are we going to be focused on? Obviously, concluding the cost of capital and general rate case are at the top of the list. Those are two very important proceedings for us and affect the biggest book of business that we have, which is our California utility. As I mentioned earlier, we expect the drought to continue into 2023 and our strong drought response, and also dealing with the supply chain issues. Again, the team has done a great job on the supply chain side, but as long as these headwinds continue, the more likely they are to start affecting us at some point here in the future. In addition, as Paul mentioned, we want to continue to execute on our growth plans and our business development pipeline. So while we're all dealing with the economic uncertainties that are around us, each and every day right now. Our balance sheet has remained strong. We have plenty of cash. We have been able to continue our growth in our capital program as well as our business development pipeline. And we remain mission-driven serving our customers and doing what we do best, which is being a water and wastewater utility. So going into the fourth quarter strong, and we'll go into 2023 strong, despite all the headwinds that we're facing as a company. I want to take a moment and close out on something a little different for this quarter. One, I just want to point out, I hope everyone saw the press release, that we appointed Ms. Terri Bayer to be our lead director. Terri is an outstanding leader, seasoned executive, and she has been on the board since 2014. She started to chair our capital and investment committee in 2019. In September, we nominated her to be our lead director. She's just an outstanding person. We're very fortunate to have someone of Terry's caliber on the board. She has a strong background in public health, and she also has her law degree from Stanford University. And I hope all of you will get a chance to meet Terry at some point here in the future, because we're very, very honored to have her as our lead director. And then lastly, this is Dave Healy, our vice president of corporate controls, last conference call with us. Dave is going to be retiring at the end of December, and Dave started with us over 13 years ago as our Director of Financial Reporting. He was promoted to our Corporate Controller, and then ultimately he was promoted to our Vice President, Corporate Controller, and Principal Accounting Officer. Dave has done an outstanding job for Cal Water, not just on the financial reporting side, but also on the tax strategy side. Dave is one of the rare individuals in the accounting world that is excellent in taxes and also excellent in financial reporting. And he is going to be dearly, dearly missed. And we will anticipate announcing Dave's replacement hopefully by the end of the year. But Dave, I just want to say thank you for all you've done at Cal Water, and it's been an honor to have you on our team.

You're welcome. It's been a blast.

So with that, Regina, we will open up the line for questions, please.

At this time, if you'd like to ask a question, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Again, that is star one to ask a question. We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Our first question will come from the line of Angie Storzinski with Seaport. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Lots of questions, but let me maybe first start with taxes now that you mentioned them. So there seems to be a pretty substantial increase in year-to-date income taxes, like I think close to $3 million. Is it just timing related, and is there some true-up happening in the fourth quarter?

So I'll go ahead and answer that. This is Dave Healy. So part of, if you recall, when the corporate income tax rate a decrease to 21% in 2017. The way utilities handle that is the reduction is moved to a long-term liability and refunded to ratepayers. And it's the timing of when the refunds are refunded to ratepayers. So the 2018 and 2019 refunds to our rate payers were paid to them during the years 2021 and 2022. In 2022, it's $4 million less than was refunded in 2021, and that's what's driving the $4 million decrease. So it's part of our effective tax rate calculation. And that's what's causing it.

But is it a decrease? Because this is an increase, right, in the operating costs. You're basically... That's right.

Okay, so when we do the tax refunds, how it's recorded is a reduction to income tax expense. So there's more of a reduction in 2021 than in 2022.

I understand. So it's fair to assume that this 4 million year-over-year delta persists through the end of the year?

Yes. So it will continue through the end of the year, and then it flattens out for the next three years. So there was just a little catch-up. The catch-up was for the years 2018 and 2019. Yes. And it only was in years 2021 and 2022.

Okay, understand. Very good. And then secondly, again, as I'm just going through the results year over year, there seems to be a pretty meaningful pickup in non-regulated expenses. And so I assume that some of it has to do with those uninsured losses. But again, it's like a $10 million gap. increase year-to-date, again, year-over-year, if you could explain what it's related to.

Yeah, so when we talk about the unrealized loss on our non-qualified pension plan investments, it's recorded in non-regulated expenses, and that's what's driving that change.

Okay, I understand.

That's the mark to market, yeah.

Yes, okay. That's fine. So I understand that one. Okay, so then going back to the regulatory proceedings that are still pending. So the GRC, you know, in light of the inflation that you see in your cost structure, how much of it is already reflected in the pending GRC? And is there a way to basically true up some of the costs that you're seeing before the final decision is rendered?

That's a great question. Greg, do you want to take a first crack at that about how we incorporate new inflation into the GRC process? Absolutely.

As part of the settlement and undisputed items, we made a request with the commission that at the time the proposed decision is put forth, that it reflect the most current inflation factors on all of our expenses. And that would be the mechanism that we would incorporate. address the the rising inflation that's going on right now from when we filed the case in july 2021 and then there's still an update i'm so sorry so being so we're still you're about to file an update before the proposed decision is issued no at the time i think uh go ahead greg i was just going to say at the time we filed the the case we estimated what inflation would be for the years 2023. Okay. And that has significantly changed. Yes. But as part of the original filing, we made a special request that has not been disputed by public advocates that says when the commission puts forth the proposed decision that they will update all the expenses based on the most current inflation factors at the time.

Okay.

I understand. Okay.

Okay. Angie, the other thing to add there that Greg didn't mention is remember that in California we have escalation increases in the second and third year of the GRC, and those also incorporate the most recent inflation factors. And so while Greg's talking about incorporating into 2023 calculations for rates, there's also a 2024 and potentially 2025 if this continues to be a high rate of inflation.

Understood. Okay. So moving on to the cost of capital proceeding. So, I mean, I understand that there's a delay. I mean, yes, there is a delay, but the, I mean, is this really a debate as to when the new cost of capital kicks in? I mean, I thought it was pretty obvious. It's 1-1-22 and it is not dependent on the exact timing of the final decision. No, it's, Basically, the review period is 1-1-22 through December 31st, 24, no?

So it's an interesting question. I think that you have to look also at what's going on with the California energy cost of capital and the pending case there, what's happening with the proposed decision from the administrative law judge and the alternate proposed decision of the president of the commission. The issue that we have and the reason that we are not recording the regular liability associated with the lower cost of debt is that the procedural steps that the Commission would normally take to ensure that rates could be made retroactive have not been done. There was no filing for interim rates. There's no memorandum account to track interim rates. Those are the normal procedural processes that would require, that would allow the commission to go back in time. And so right now, that's the situation in the process. So we're still waiting to see what that decision says. And obviously, we'll book to whatever that decision ends up saying, but we don't have any evidence one way or another at this point. we're obviously disclosing the amount in case it does go back. And so you have that in the slide deck, and it's in the 10-Q as well.

Okay. And my last question on the... So I understand there's $11 million associated with the lower cost of debt, and I see that you're issuing equity quite a bit. Now, what is your expected equity layer at the subsidiary, at the California subsidiary, by the end of the year? And if... If this cost of capital proceeding were to lower the allowed equity layer in line with what the year-end number will be, what would be that reduction in revenue?

So, Greg, I'm not sure that we've calculated the reduction in revenue associated with adopting the ratepayer advocate's position associated with that. And, Angie, I'm sorry about that. But it's several additional million, as I think I understand it, that might be taken out of the return. As far as the first part of the question goes, I believe that if you look at the financials in the 10-Q, I think we're about 50-50 right now within California as our current equity capital structure. And so that you'd say is actually probably as high or higher than what the commission staff had recommended. And so Obviously, there's an opportunity at any time for comments to the decision. Anytime we get a proposed decision, that'll certainly be part of our comments that, look, they said our cap structure was below 50%, and in fact, it's already at 50% as of the date whenever that comes out. We expect with the ATM program that will continue to rise And we obviously have a plan to get to the 53.4% equity and express that plan to the commission. The staff is just completely using a historic evaluation, which we don't think is appropriate at this time.

Awesome. Okay. Thank you. I have plenty more questions, but I'll let others ask. Thank you. Okay.

Thank you.

Again, to ask a question, simply press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Our next question will come from the line of Jonathan Reeder with Wells Fargo.

Hey, good morning, team. Thanks for taking my question. Yeah, just wondering, do you have any insight, you know, if the ALJ is currently drafting, you know, the PD? Is there, you know, or is there, you know, still potentially other high-profile, you know, cases still sequenced before it?

You know, Jonathan, it's difficult to say the administrative law judges work independently at the commission. For those of you who don't know, I was head of regulatory for Cal Water for quite some time and worked at the commission before that, so I feel comfortable saying I know a little bit about how ALJs work. You'd have to look at what other cases this particular ALJ has, and then you'd have to evaluate whether It's sort of like you need to be a fly on the wall, so to speak, to understand is Commissioner, I think it's Commissioner Houck that has the case. Is she driving other, are there other things that she's working on that are keeping her from helping the judge issue a decision in this particular case? And I don't think we know the answer to any of those questions at this point. The energy cost to capital case is obviously a data point, which could impact how they view our case. in some respects, but I believe that's a different judge and I know that's a different commissioner. So I don't know that that would stand in the way of this case going forward.

Okay. Yeah, no, I know all the ins and outs and was hoping you guys might know it because I certainly have a harder time piecing the puzzle together on that.

I think in reference back to Angie's question, I think that the company would really appreciate it if the commission at least issued a proposed decision before we have to release earnings in February of next year so that we just have some guidance on that question about the effective date. I know there's a lot of folks that just assume that that effective date is back to the to the start, and we're not convinced of that at this point. So, you know, I think we'd like to get that answer on the books, at least in terms of a PD. I think that would be very helpful to us.

And I would really hope there's a PD by February. Yeah, well, we do too. We do too. Okay. In terms of the decoupling legislation that was passed, does it specify, you know, that the request must be made as part of like a GRC, or could it be requested... you know, as a standalone item, either just by, you know, Cal Water or by all the utilities together.

Yeah, I believe it specifies it's picked up at the next GRC filing. Jonathan?

Greg might have some insight into that. Greg, you're still on the call, right? Yes, yes. Actually, it specifies a GRC, filing your next GRC, or by mutual agreement of the company and commissioned by an application company between GRCs. So there is an opportunity to file for something before our 2024 GRC.

Okay. And so have you guys, I guess, formulated a strategy based on that? Like, is it, you know, wait to see how the Supreme Court case, you know, kind of plays out? Or, you know, might you do that separate avenue of, you know, requesting it in between?

Well, I mean, go ahead, Greg.

I'll let you go first. I was just going to say what we're going to do, Jonathan, starting in 2023, is put together our case for re-requesting decoupling that we would either file in our 2024 GRC, which would be July, or make the decision based on how things are going with with the Supreme Court or other companies if we want to try and file it earlier through an application. But the decision hasn't yet been made actually when we would file it.

Okay. And Jonathan, I think the critical element here is that if you recall back to the decision which wiped out the decoupling, There we didn't have an opportunity to put in any evidentiary testimony. And the Commission really railroaded us in that case. And so we don't want to go off half-cocked and file something that doesn't have robust information behind it about how effective the program is and has been. And so that's why we're not likely to go file next week. You know, as Greg said, we're going to spend some time working on our testimony making sure that we have the facts all lined up before we put that out.

Yeah, and I think we are keenly interested in the state Supreme Court case. There was a 1% chance they would take the case, and they accepted the case, and the case was on the merits of lack of due process. So I think we want to get into that a little bit to see how the state Supreme Court is going to look at it and consider that.

Yeah, so what is the, I guess, kind of the timeframe on resolution from the Supreme Court now? Is there any... statutory timeframe. And then, you know, two, if they do decide that, you know, your due process rights were violated, uh, does that just stricken the order by the commission? Um, and you have decoupling, like decoupling just is automatically back in or, you know, what exactly are the Supreme court rules in your favor?

You know, well, it's a state Supreme Court, so I don't think they are locked into a schedule per se. I mean, we had to go through an application process that had to be reviewed, then they had to accept the case, and then we'll do oral arguments sometime hopefully in the first quarter. And then I think they tend to move fairly quickly. The question of what happens next is a good question. I don't think we know because I don't think we've had too many water cases in front of the state Supreme Court. I think we're on a little bit of unchartered ground. I think they could null and void the commission's decision and send it back to them. They could say, you know, this isn't binding. You need to go back and open that particular case to get evidence on the record. I think, you know, we're kind of in a new zone here. But again, we're very happy the state Supreme Court took the case on the basis of our argument, which was lack of due process. Okay. All right, well, yeah. Yeah, I think between the legislative win and the state taking the case, I mean, I feel like we've had good momentum on this issue. And as I mentioned to the governor and the governor's office, they should perceive it as a bit awkward that a publicly traded company or publicly traded set of companies is calling and saying, hey, cap our upside, which is what decoupling does. But look at the exact environment that we're in in the state of California with the drought and the climate change issues. And so it's a little, and this is my personal opinion, it's a little absurd to think we're getting rid of decoupling when we're in this horrible drought. It just doesn't make a lot of sense for the customer. It doesn't make a lot of sense for us, et cetera. So we have stuck by our guns with decoupling because it's the right policy position for us to be in to serve the state of California and our customers within the state.

Right, and obviously there's been some turnover at the Commission since, you know, that other order originally handed down. Any sense how the newer Commissioners feel about decoupling?

Not yet. I mean, on the slide we talk about the new paradigm. I think that's what we mean by that. You know, the Commission has still been largely remote, still kind of in pandemic mode. So face time has been somewhat limited, and obviously you have rules around that. ex parte roles that you can't really talk about an open case, you know, with the commissioner. So we're starting to get a little bit more face time with some of the commissioners, which is good. But, you know, again, we're prohibited from talking about kind of the current open cases.

Okay. All right. Well, yeah, good luck with getting it reinstated. I mean, it does seem like there's momentum from a lot of angles. So best of luck with that. Thanks for the time today. All right, Jonathan. Thank you.

Once again, for any questions, press star 1. Our next question is a follow-up from the line of Angie Storsinski with Seaport. Please go ahead.

Thank you. I'm persistent today. Anyway, so just a couple of other things. So on billed revenues, you mentioned that you think that there's going to be some catch-up before the end of the year. So should I assume that there is a meaningful – benefits to fourth quarter earnings associated with those changes in the balance of unbilled revenues?

Let me put it this way. If you look at the fourth quarter of 2021, we had that enormous amount of unbilled revenue that had built up in the second and third quarter, and that dropped off to a normal level at the end of the year. And so in this year, we have much less peak unbilled revenue than And that really hit us in the second quarter. But we do continue to expect, and we've stated that we expect the unbilled revenue to come back down to a normal level at the end of the year. So I guess I'm trying to say that we would expect less of a decline in unbilled revenue in the fourth quarter of 22 as compared to the fourth quarter of 21. So I think the answer to your question is yes, if that helps. Okay.

Okay. And then, again, not to be a stickler here, but just going back to the P&L, so I asked about non-regulated expenses, but instead I wanted to ask about the other components of periodic benefit credits, which is up about $4 million year-to-date, year-over-year. I mean, could you explain to me what this is?

Yeah. So... We use, to value our defined pension plan, we use the spot rate method. And the use of the spot rate method has resulted in an increase in this credit. So what this is, there's the service cost of pension plans and the non-service cost. This is the change to the non-service cost.

And just an important reminder that both the service and the non-service cost of the California pension expense is tracked in a balancing account in California, the bulk of our business, and it doesn't affect net income because there's a revenue offset associated with the balancing account. Right, just the smaller part that's out of California.

Okay, and then just concluding, on this cost of capital proceeding, so I understand that you are drawing some conclusions from the cost of capital for 2022 for electrics or for energy companies. Admittedly, that was just about the cost of capital adjustment mechanism as opposed to cost of capital review, which in their case is only for 2023 and beyond. So I'm not quite sure if there is much of a read-through here. And then secondly, you also mentioned that there is some uncertainty about the – the step-up, the ROE step-up on the back of the adjustment mechanism, which by all accounts was triggered for water utilities at the end of September. So, especially on the latter, so I understand that you guys have to file for this increase to happen. I haven't seen the filing. So, talk to me about how that impacts when exactly this 50 BIPs step-up would apply.

Sure. So, let's go through a couple of things. First of all, As I understand it, and I apologize if I'm incorrect about this, but in the energy capital case, it's not determinative, but it's just sort of an example of what the commission's thinking. There are two decisions that are out there. There's the administrative law judge decision, and then there's the alternate that's proposed by President Reynolds. The alternate by President Reynolds says what you said, which is that it just waives the triggering of the mechanism. But the important distinction that I see is that the difference between the two proposed decisions is whether they would go back and have a full investigation of the 2022 cost of capital in a full review sense. So that's the open question I was talking about. And President Reynolds' alternate says we don't go back. And so I thought that was interesting. And it might be somewhat informative into our case. It might not be. Obviously, it might be a different decision that happens later. with energy and with water. So with respect to triggering, the difficulty is that we don't have a proposed decision. And so we cannot make a filing based upon a, there's no order in a decision that says we file for the adjustment because there's nothing to adjust from and there's no adopted order that says we make that filing. I would expect that if the commission were to come out with a proposed decision and a final decision that say, here's your cost of capital for 2022, they would allow us to file for the adjustment for 2023 in that rate order. And so that obviously would not be filed in October or November when it would normally be filed because October, November will have passed by the time the commission issues a decision. But typically in cases like that where they have missed the deadline for a triggered advice letter filing, they'll allow that filing to be made later. And so you walk through a hypothetical and you say, well, if they set a cost of capital for 2022 and they do that on January 15th or whatever, there's probably going to be an order in that final decision which says, and the companies shall file for the triggered cost of capital for 2023 in the same filing or subsequent to it. So we would see that. Now, keep in mind that a number of the analysts have suggested that the commission might take the information that it might have triggered and just give us a general change to the cost of equity and say that though both parties agreed to the adjustment, we've essentially waved their hands and incorporate the adjustment into whatever they decide. So that's why we're uncertain. We don't know how the commission is going to react to their own delay.

Well, the only difference is that the adjustment kicks in, well, at least theoretically, 1-1-23, and the cost of capital review, i.e., change to the, well, all components of the cost of capital was 1-1-22, right? But I understand the point that you're trying to make is that there's no certainty as to when exactly this kicks in.

Right. There's no certainty as to how the commission's going to react to the new information. about the changed economic environment. That's the gist of it. We just don't know what they're going to say in their decision. And I don't mean to speak over Greg. I know Greg's an expert on this as well. So Greg, if you had any other insights on this, I'm happy to hear from you too.

Tom, you've addressed all the issues. I would have brought up the same points.

Thanks. Okay. Thank you, guys. Thank you.

Okay. Thanks.

And we have no further questions at this time. I'll turn the conference back over for any closing remarks.

Great. Well, thanks for joining us on this nice fall day. We'll look forward to communicating our year-end results with you the end of February. In the meantime, be safe and thank you. Have a good day.

Ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.