Colorado Woman Came Out of Retirement to Cover Bills, Including Xcel Increases

Patricia Mills Sanchez is 75 years old. She went back to work about a year ago because she and her husband, who is a Vietnam veteran, needed extra money to cover their rising cost of living, including increased medical expenses and also rising property taxes and utility bills.

“Everything's going up, and our income is not,” Mills Sanchez says. “Since I got a job, it hasn't been too bad. … We don't qualify for any kind of help. We struggled to make sure we could make the gas and electric payment. Neither one of us wants to keep our thermostat set at 68 degrees, because we're both cold all the time, so we keep our thermostat set at 70, and we know we're going to have to pay the price for that.”

Mills Sanchez retired from Lockheed Martin with a pension after a 45-year career in human resources. She and her husband used to be able to live off a combination of Social Security and pensions, but when that no longer paid the bills, she started a job search.

At first she wasn’t sure that she'd be able to find something appropriate, but a year ago she found a job at South Suburban Parks and Recreation in Littleton as a part-time human resources assistant. “It's a delightful place to work, with really great people,” she says. “It's really added a lot to my life, in addition to helping me financially.”

She'd only planned to stay there for six months, which she thought would be enough to help the couple get out of their financial rut. But she decided to stay because she enjoys the work — and she was glad she'd stuck around when high Xcel Energy bills hit communities across Colorado this winter.

Mills Sanchez pays for a supplement to Medicare because she and her husband have both had medical issues over the past few years and they need more coverage. The price for that coverage goes up annually, representing the largest increase in the family’s cost of living. But the variability in Xcel bills makes them trickier to manage.

The couple’s Centennial home, where they have lived for four years, is about 1,350 square feet on the main level; they spend most of their time there. Although the house includes a rarely used basement, neither manages stairs well these days.

“Even with our solar credits, our bill was $190 [in February], and it keeps going up every month,” Mills Sanchez says, adding that it’s hard for her to even estimate what a normal bill would be because of how much it changes month to month. The latest bill, due March 30, is for $214, with about $140 for gas and $94 for electricity.

In the summer, their bill is much lower because of the home's solar panels; in sunny months, the solar credits offset the cost of powering the house. But the panels don't help as much in the winter, when there’s less sun and natural gas is required to heat their home.

Xcel passes the commodity price of the natural gas it purchases on to customers. According to Erin O’Neill, chief economist with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, which regulates Xcel in the state, those gas prices were the main driver of high bills earlier this year; electricity didn’t have as large a swing because of more stable renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar.

Despite natural gas causing price increases for customers, Xcel is helping power Coloradans for Energy Access, a nonprofit group fighting the push to heat homes with electricity rather than natural gas, according to reporting by Colorado Public Radio. Coloradans for Energy Access went public in 2022 and published an opinion piece at the time in the Colorado Sun noting that it had launched in order to support the use of natural gas in homes and businesses, warning that electrification would “raise energy prices, threaten reliability, and hurt low-income Coloradans.”

In 2021, as the nonprofit was forming, Joni Zich, the senior director of gas strategy for Xcel, served as a boardmember; Xcel donated $80,000 to Coloradans for Energy Access in 2022. The group has also been linked to Black Hills Energy, Atmos Energy and Colorado Summit Utilities.

Xcel says that natural gas is necessary for the company to reach its vision of reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions. The company has an interim target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from its supply, delivery and use of natural gas by 25 percent by 2030.

"We empower choice for our customers," Xcel says through spokesperson Tyler Bryant. "Coloradans for Energy Access represents affordability and reliability and choice. We are members of many different organizations in Colorado who represent different perspectives on energy."

Though some consumers have reported problems with hooking up their solar panels to Xcel — problems that the PUC pledged to look into at a February listening session — Mills Sanchez says that her solar panels have helped her plan her budget. The cost of her lease for the panels is $150 per month and doesn’t fluctuate.

Most of her friends have moved to retirement communities, Mills Sanchez notes; she and her husband have been able to stay in their home because she was able to return to work, something she knows isn’t possible for everyone.

It’s important to them to stay in the Denver area in order to be close to their grandchildren.

“I was lucky I had an education that I could get a job that just requires sitting at a computer, because I have an artificial hip,” Mills Sanchez says. “The hardest part has been that everything is going up. … It's a struggle for people our age, and I thank God that I was able to go back to work. I’m not sure how much longer I'm going to be able to work, but I'm going to try and hang in there for at least another six months or so.”

Other Coloradans with worries like those of Mills Sanchez can share their thoughts with the Joint Select Committee on Rising Utility Rates, formed in February by state Senate President Steve Fenberg and House Speaker Julie McCluskie in response to increases in utility bills across Colorado. The committee is investigating the root cause of those increases and considering policy interventions.

To weigh in, email [email protected]. The committee’s first meeting is at 2 p.m. Tuesday, March 7, in the Old State Library. Testimony is already scheduled from representatives of the Public Utilities Commission, Colorado Energy Office, Office of the Utility Consumer Advocate and Energy Outreach Colorado.