Moorhead church gets whopping rebate from utility

A Catholic Church in Moorhead is $150,000 richer after discovering a local utility had been doubling its electric bill for the last 14 years.

St. Joseph's administrator Mike Heinzen tells the Forum of Fargo that it wasn't Moorhead Public Service's fault. He says the contractor who added an addition to the church in 1996 failed to remove old electrical meters, which continued to be read along with new meters.

Moorhead Public Service general manager Mike Schwandt says the utility noticed a jump in the church's power consumption at the time, but figured it was because of the addition.

The over-billing wasn't caught until an electrician working at the church questioned why it had two electircal meters.

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Heinzen says the money went into the church's building fund.

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Information from: The Fargo Forum

(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)