Public Utilities Commission: balancing accounts: reviews and audits.

Under existing law, the Public Utilities Commission has regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations, gas corporations, heat corporations, telegraph corporations, telephone corporations, and water corporations. Existing law requires the commission to require a public utility to establish and maintain a balancing account reflecting the balance between related costs and revenues whenever the commission authorizes any change in rates reflecting and passing through to the public utility's customers specific changes in costs, except as specified. Existing law requires the commission to adopt balancing account review or audit procedures that prioritize the review of certain balancing accounts based, in part, on the accounts' quarterly balances and authorized revenue amounts and that prioritize review of those accounts that have not been reviewed or audited in the previous 3 years. Existing law authorizes the commission to forgo the review or audit of a balancing account if the Public Advocate's Office of the Public Utilities Commission or an independent auditor plans to review or audit the balancing account. This bill would revise those balancing account review or audit procedures to instead prioritize accounts based on year-end, rather than quarterly, balances and authorized revenue amounts. The bill would authorize the commission to additionally forgo the review or audit of a balancing account that the Public Advocate's Office has reviewed, or an independent auditor has audited, in the previous 3 years, as specified.