While MISO is under budget so far in 2018, the RTO’s financial staff is forecasting a slight overspend by year-end, members of the Audit and Finance Committee of the Board of Directors learned Wednesday.

In the first three months of 2018, MISO has spent $41.5 million of its $42.3 million year-to-date budget, under budget by 1.8%. Chief Financial Officer Melissa Brown said the savings were mostly related to belated start times of some of MISO’s planned investments.

“A lot of those just had slow starts this year,” Brown said during a committee conference call ahead of a March 29 board meeting in New Orleans, where numbers will again be presented.

However, Brown said MISO is forecasting spending $266.8 million by year-end, 0.7% more than its $264.9 million 2018 budget. The expected overspend is because MISO is reclassifying $1.6 million from its capital budget into one-time operating expenses. The reclassification will lower the RTO’s projected total capital expenses from $29.6 million to $28.1 million for the year.

So far this year, MISO’s capital spending is trending lower, also owing to delayed project starts, Brown said. To date, the RTO has spent $6.1 million of its $7.3 million budget.

In addition to beginning work to replace MISO’s aging market platform with a new modular computer system, the 2018 capital budget includes maintaining its cybersecurity team, automating employee system access revocations, automating its settlements program, replacing software and hardware that fails throughout the year and renovating meeting space at the Carmel, Ind., headquarters.

Board Chairman Michael Curran asked in future meetings to see a separate financial report for MISO’s $130 million, seven-year effort to replace its market platform. (See MISO Makes Case for $130M Market Platform Upgrade.)

— Amanda Durish Cook