Public Utilities Board Names New CU General Manager

City Utilities Associate General Manager Scott Miller will become General Manager in June. KSMU's Missy Shelton reports.

The Board of Public Utilities has named the next general manager of City Utilities of Springfield. Board Chairman Patrick Platter made the announcement at a press conference this morning.

“I’m pleased to announce the Board of Public Utilities as selected Scott Miller for the new General Manager for City Utilities of Springfield.”

Scott Miller currently serves as Associate General Manager at CU and will take over as General Manager June 11th. Miller says his first task will be gathering input from the community, CU employees, and the board. As for ratepayers, Miller says he’ll do his best to keep rates down.

“There are a lot of pressures out there. I think all of us are feeling them in our daily lives. I would not anticipate that rates going to go down. Our job is to try to manage that and keep our rates as low as possible. When you think about the utility, we buy our fuel nationally, competitive with everybody else. We buy all our material competitive with everybody else. When you think about it from that standpoint, and we’re one of the lowest rates for utilities in the nation, there’s not a lot of downside there. Our challenge is going to be to keep our rates as low as possible but to manage all those challenges that are coming out.”

The chairman of the Board of Public Utilities, Patrick Platter says Miller brings a good combination of experience to this position.

“It is rare for someone with an engineering background like this to also have a background, both scholastic and practical, in developing financial reasons. And that’s one of the reasons Scott was hired here nine years ago.”

Miller will have a one year contract and will get paid $295,000 his first year on the job, slightly above the minimum salary for the position. Departing CU General Manager John Twitty who held the position for nine years makes $377,000 annually.