(INDIANA CAPITAL CHRONICLE) – The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission voted 3-1 Wednesday to approve a $71 million electricity rate increase for AES Indiana customers.

That is about 37% of what the utility initially requested and lower than a settlement agreement proposed in October.

Neither Gov. Mike Braun nor consumer advocates are happy with the outcome.

“My top priority is affordability, which is why I am deeply disappointed by the IURC’s approval of another AES rate increase,” he said. “Hoosiers have spent years tightening their belts and making tough financial decisions. It’s time for utility companies to do the same.”

Members of the commission didn’t explain their votes Wednesday. IURC Chair Andy Zay focused his remarks on the process.

“There’s a lot of eyes on this order and what we’re doing today,” he said. “What is before you on the floor is a nearly a year’s worth of work, evidence, deliberations, and considerations that bring us to this moment in this decision. None of this was taken lightly. I want to thank my colleagues for the patience and working through this amongst the auspice of affordability, which is certainly a hot topic now, as well as the resiliency, reliability that we see in this increased demand in electricity.”

The Office of Utility Consumer Counselor last year recommended that state regulators deny AES Indiana’s request for a $193 million base rate increase — instead proposing a $21 million reduction in current rates.

“The AES rate order issued today is an outrage and Hoosiers deserve better!” Counselor Abby Gray said in a statement Wednesday. “Governor Braun has made it clear that ratepayer affordability is a priority, far more than just a ‘hot topic’ as described by the chairman of the IURC today. This order fails the governor’s call to overhaul how utilities are regulated in order to lower bills for ratepayers.”

Gray’s office represents Hoosier ratepayers in regulatory cases.

“The order approves a substantial profit margin for shareholders in addition to a rate increase for customers,” she continued. “It even requires ratepayers to pay approximately $3 million to AES lawyers and experts.”

AES Indiana provides electricity service to about 490,000 homes and businesses in Indianapolis and some nearby areas.

The utility originally sought $193 million in rate increases. The previously proposed settlement agreement dropped that to $91 million, while the final, approved settlement agreement lands at $71 million.

Three IURC members supported the increase: Zay, David Veleta and David Ziegner.

Commissioner Bob Deig voted no. A fifth member, Anthony Swinger, recused himself because he worked on the case previously when he was on the consumer counselor’s office staff.

Ben Inskeep, program director for ratepayer advocacy group Citizens Action Coalition, said utilities across the country often ask for a larger increase than they need, knowing that regulators will disallow “roughly half” of it.

“The latest AES Indiana fuel adjustment clause proceeding shows AES Indiana is actually not only earning all of their allowed profit but over-earning by $19 million their return amount,” he said. “They’re already extremely financially successful at this moment in time, so it’s rather bizarre to even get an extra $71 million dollars approved here.”

Inskeep also noted that the increases will fall disproportionately on residential customers over commercial and industrial users.

Brandi Davis-Handy, president of AES Indiana, said the company has maintained some of the lowest rates in the state for more than a decade “through disciplined planning and a focus on efficiency. We applied the same approach here by working closely with stakeholders to make balanced decisions that keep the system reliable, limit customer impact, and align with the state’s energy pillars.”

AES said for a typical residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours per month, the increase will be less than $5 per month per phase. Phase one rates will be implemented in July 2026 and phase two rates will be implemented in January 2027.

The final order says the utility “will not seek to implement a change in basic rates and charges as a result of its next base rate case before January 1, 2030.”

A new law, however, requires all utilities to file a multi-year rate case in 2029, though implementation wouldn’t happen until 2030.

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita on Wednesday asked the Indiana Supreme Court to schedule the execution of death row inmate Jeffrey Weisheit.

The filing came just eight days after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene in Weisheit’s case.

He was sentenced to death in 2012 for the murders of 5-year-old Caleb Lynch and his 8-year-old sister, Alyssa Lynch, who were killed in a Vanderburgh County house fire in 2010.

In a verified motion filed with the state’s high court, attorneys for the state argued that Weisheit has exhausted all available avenues of review and that no active stay remains in place to prevent his execution.

The state requested that the court set an execution date 30 to 45 days after granting the motion.

“For more than 15 years, the family of these two innocent children has waited for justice,” Rokita said in a Wednesday statement. “A jury lawfully convicted Weisheit and sentenced him to death. That sentence has been upheld through every level of the judicial system. It is long past time to carry out the sentence.”

Weisheit killed the children during the early morning hours of April 10, 2010, according to court records. Prosecutors said he “hog-tied” Caleb and placed railroad flares in the boy’s underwear before igniting them and fleeing the home. Alyssa was also inside the residence when the fire spread through the house, killing both children.

Authorities later apprehended Weisheit in Kentucky after a high-speed chase. Court records indicate he threw a knife at pursuing officers before being taken into custody.

A Vanderburgh County jury convicted Weisheit in 2012 of two counts of murder and recommended a death sentence after finding multiple aggravating circumstances, including that both victims were younger than 12 years old. The trial court subsequently imposed the death penalty.

The case has spent more than a decade moving through state and federal courts.

The Indiana Supreme Court upheld Weisheit’s convictions and death sentence in 2015. His request for post-conviction relief was later denied, and the state’s high court affirmed that decision in 2018.

Weisheit then turned to federal court, filing a habeas corpus petition in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana in 2020. The petition was denied in 2022, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed the decision last August before rejecting a rehearing request the following month.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case on June 8.

A heroic Indiana mother was killed when she stepped in between her son and an 18-year-old gunman who had pulled a firearm on them during a Facebook marketplace sale.

Jean Gragg, 40, and her teenage son were selling a watch to prospective buyer John Ford during an arranged meet-up on the front porch of their Edison Park, Ind., home near the University of Notre Dame on June 10, South Bend Police said.

Gragg’s son had planned to sell the watch to Ford just before 10 p.m.

Family friends said the exchange was common for Gragg’s son, who has made sales through Facebook Marketplace “many times before.”

Ford allegedly pulled out a handgun while he was inspecting the timepiece.

“When Jean stepped in to support her son, the man went over the edge,” family friend Debra McKinley wrote on a GoFundMe.

Gragg, an office manager for H&R Block, wedged herself between the two teens and pushed the suspected gunman away and off her property.

Ford allegedly fired multiple shots at Gragg, who was walking up her driveway back to her home as her horrified family watched.

She was struck in the head by one of the rounds.

Nearby security cameras captured Gragg falling to the ground as Ford ran away, according to court records viewed by WSBT.

Gragg was rushed to a local hospital in critical condition before she was declared brain-dead. She was taken off life support by 6 p.m. on June 13, McKinley said.

“My superhero,” Gragg’s son told WNDU.

Gragg was remembered as a traveler who enjoyed spending time with her son and friends.

“She was a nurturer, if anyone close to her was sick, you could count on her to take excellent care of you,” her family said in an online obituary. “Jean was a dedicated, wonderful mother, very loving and caring, always putting her son first down to her very last breath. (He) was her whole world.”

Ford was tracked down to an apartment complex 2 miles from the scene of the shooting.

Police had also found the suspected gun dumped over a fence at the complex.

Ford allegedly admitted to shooting at Gragg during an interview with police.

He has been charged with murder, attempted murder and robbery in the shooting.

Ford is being held at the St. Joseph County Jail without bond, according to police.