ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – PNM said staffing shortages have left some customers without someone to read their meter. Instead, they’re getting estimated power bills. Complaints about bills topping $1,000 have now drawn questions from the state Department of Justice.
PNM told customers in a text that the company could not read some meters and instead estimated bills based on past energy use unless customers checked the meter themselves.
The New Mexico Department of Justice asked PNM to explain why it has estimated so many bills, whether it filed its estimation process with the state and whether it should have seen the problem coming.
“Like I said, I reached out to our legislators, our gubernatorial candidates, and I’m just kind of standing out on the mountaintop and, you know, saying, look what PNM’s doing, and it’s not right, it’s not fair, and in my opinion, it’s criminal,” said Michael Venticinque.
Ella Burton, a Deming resident in Luna County, told KOB 4 she has struggled to keep up with her PNM bill. KOB 4 reported her August bill was more than $1,000 and her July bill was almost $1,100.
“Don’t blame it on it’s hot. Don’t blame it on you’ve used more because oh no, I have not used more. You know what I mean? Don’t put the blame on me. Don’t put the blame somewhere else. Take ownership for what the problem is,” said Burton.
PNM spokesperson Eric Chavez told KOB 4 the shortage started in July and is now solved. He said customers should start seeing actual meter readings again.
“So when we estimate a customer’s meter read, what we do is we take the read from the previous month. So if we’re now in September of ’26, we’ve taken the read for August ’26.as well as the reading in September of ’25 and we average those to get an estimate of your bill,” said Chavez.
Chavez said a true reading will eventually correct whether a bill was overestimated or underestimated.
PNM says October’s bill will be based on an actual meter reading. The attorney general wants a response from PNM by next week.
