Long Island Power Authority to review KeySpan records

Long Island Business News, Dec 13, 2002 by Peter Mantius

LIPA and KeySpan breaking up?

That's at least an outside possibility in the wake of KeySpan's recent admission that it overstated by $60 million the Long Island Power Authority's electric sales revenues from KeySpan plants in 2001 and 2002. KeySpan blamed inadvertent double counting.

LIPA has now hired the accounting firm Virshow Krause & Co. to review KeySpan's records over this year and 2001. It's looking for overcharges, billing mistakes and inaccurate tabulations that could indicate a bigger problem or confirm KeySpan's explanation of the error as an isolated event.

LIPA now buys most of its power from KeySpan, a public company that earns about 12 percent of its revenues from LIPA.

"We're looking at everything at this point," said LIPA spokesman Bert Cunningham. "If there are substantial problems, that could be serious enough to alter contracts."