ORLANDO, Fla. — MISO’s base operating budget will increase 15% in 2024, mostly because of the grid operator adding about 70 staff positions so it can keep up with the pace of change and emerging issues in the footprint.
MISO’s Board of Directors approved the nearly $400 million budget for 2024 at a Dec. 7 meeting, continuing a trend of budget increases year-over-year.
MISO is proposing a $370 million 2024 operating budget, which contains a nearly 15% increase in base operating spending over 2023. It also is eyeing approximately $27.3 million in capital spending.
MISO has said it struggles to keep up with its current workload under existing staff levels and the hires will help it accomplish projects under intended timelines.
MISO will up its $0.44/MWh tariff rate for members to $0.47/MWh next year.
The grid operator is poised to end the year with base expenses about 1.8% over budget, or $4.3 million. MISO said the cost overruns are mostly due to a $5 million cost overrun in salaries and benefits this year, due to hiring more staff, market pressures, and more overtime and on-call work.
MISO CFO Melissa Brown said MISO has returned to a more normal 3% employee vacancy rate after experiencing a 6% vacancy rate at the beginning of the year. She said the COVID pandemic was a “very strong lesson in how labor market dynamics can substantially impact [MISO].”
Brown said MISO is trying its best to get expenses down before year’s end, but the salary component is somewhat out of MISO’s control.
“Quite honestly, we’re talking about $50,000 line items right now, asking, ‘Do we really need to do that?’” Brown asked during a Nov. 30 meeting of the Audit and Finance Committee leading up to Board Week.
Brown said anticipating future budgets, especially on the five-year horizon into 2028, is becoming more challenging as the resource transition ensues and stubbornly high inflation sticks around.
