When Colorado Springs Utilities requests approval Monday of its $1 billion spending plan for 2013, a debate about whether to continue to install a $73.5 million emissions control technology at the coal-fired power plant downtown will be front and center.Three Utilities Board members — Angela Dougan, Tim Leigh and Brandy Williams — said they intend to vote against the proposed budget unless they can separate out, or bifurcate, a vote on a $39 million line item for the sulfur dioxide scrubbers.Call it a protest vote.The board, made up of the City Council, has had multiple debates about continuing with the technology. But a majority on the nine-member board decided to move ahead with installing the scrubbers at the Martin Drake Power Plant. The technology was invented by Springs-based Neumann Systems Group.“We need to make sure those who are in favor of Neumann’s technology are called out for accountability, and that is why we need bifurcation,” Leigh said Friday.While pushing ahead with the technology, the board is also in the beginning stages of a study that looks at decommissioning the Drake power plant in 15 years or sooner.Dougan, Leigh and Williams say it doesn’t make sense to continue to spend money on the technology when that study hasn’t been completed.Utilities, which has invested tens of millions of dollars in Neumann, including research and development, is facing a 2017 deadline to meet environmental regulations for coal-fired power generators.Drake meets environmental regulations, but the cost to bring Drake into compliance for the more strict regulations in 2017 is $121 million.Meanwhile, Mayor Steve Bach, a nonvoting member of the board, said he plans to attend Monday’s meeting and raise concerns about the lack of detail in the utility’s budget proposal. It’ll be the first time that Bach has attended a Utilities Board meeting in his time as mayor.Bach said he doesn’t believe the board has enough information to approve the budget as presented.“I certainly can’t support it,” he said Thursday.Bach said his administration previously asked the city-owned utility to provide “more detail, more transparency into their budget in terms of showing us how they’re organized and ascribing costs to each part of their organization.”Bach said the utility came back with an organization chart for all its divisions and departments below those divisions but didn’t provide detailed information on each division.Bach said he’ll recommend that the board ask Utilities management “to go back once again and provide more detail, more visibility into their operating expenditures with respect to … personnel all the way down to each department.”A Utilities spokesman said the utility was working on a “budget supplemental” with additional information that was scheduled to be completed and sent to the board Friday.Utilities has faced increased scrutiny over the past year.While the scrubber technology is expected to be the subject of debate again Monday, it is part of a bigger community discussion not only about the future of the Drake power plant but about the governance and ownership of Utilities.The council, acting as the Utilities Board, oversees the four-service, city-owned utility.Council members, who aren’t required to have experience in utility matters, are paid $6,250 a year for a job that is considered part time but often requires full-time attention.—Contact Daniel Chacón: 476-1623Twitter @danieljchaconFacebook Daniel Chacon

Photo by