Electric customers of Jonesboro City Water and Light will pay more starting Jan. 1, 2027. CWL estimates a residential customer using about 1,250 kilowatt-hours a month will pay about $5.56 more each month in 2027. It is the first base-rate increase the Arkansas utility has put in place in 42 years.
Two steps, one in 2027 and one in 2028
The CWL Board of Directors approved the increase in late August, according to KAIT-TV, and the rate changes come in two phases. The first takes effect Jan. 1, 2027, and averages 4.6 percent. The second takes effect Jan. 1, 2028, and is 5 percent.
CWL’s estimate for the second phase is an additional $3.63 a month for the same 1,250-kWh customer, as reported by KJNB-TV. Added together, the two steps come to $9.19 a month by 2028. That is about $110 a year, by simple multiplication, for a home that uses that much electricity.
The 4.6 percent for 2027 is an average across customers, so one account can land above or below it. CWL’s coverage does not say what share of the typical customer’s bill the $5.56 represents, and the second step’s 5 percent is likewise described as a rate change, not as a bill total.
Jan. 1 is less than two months away, and the board has already voted. That leaves the rest of the fall and December to read a recent bill, find the kilowatt-hour usage line and decide what to ask CWL before the new rate starts.
Anyone in the CWL service area should find their own monthly kilowatt-hour figure on a recent bill. The $5.56 is tied to roughly 1,250 kWh. A household that uses more will see a bigger jump, and one that uses less should see a smaller one, because the bill is built on usage.
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Why the utility says rates have to rise
CWL says its current rates bring in about $108.2 million a year. It puts the revenue it needs at nearly $125 million. The gap, the utility says, is largely tied to a planned $350 million investment in the Independence Combined Cycle Natural Gas Plant, which CWL expects to be operating by January 2031.
The distance between those two numbers is about $16.8 million a year, or roughly 15 percent of what the utility collects now. The first two steps are meant to start closing it. CWL has said a third adjustment will be considered after a financial review in 2028, and no amount for a third step has been announced.
The plant is the reason the schedule stretches so far. The utility expects it to be operating by January 2031, which means customers would be paying the first two steps years before the plant is expected to run.
Coverage by Jonesboro Right Now on Aug. 25 reported that CWL has not made a base-rate adjustment since 1984, with the new rates arriving at $5.56 a month in 2027 and $3.63 more in 2028. Counting from 1984 gives the 42 years.
What the first bill in 2027 will show
The change begins Jan. 1, 2027. The announcements do not say which billing cycle first carries the higher rate, so that is a question for CWL.
A kilowatt-hour is the unit electric bills are built on, one thousand watts used for one hour. A household that runs 1,250 of them in a month is using a fair amount of electricity, so the $5.56 is a measure for that level of use and not a flat charge added to every account.
The estimate also covers only the base rate. Electric bills have other pieces, and CWL has not said in the coverage how other charges might move over the same period. The $5.56 and $3.63 are CWL’s figures for the base-rate change, not a forecast of the total bill.
Searches for a delay, a reversal or a revised schedule turned up nothing after the August approval. The only dates and figures in circulation are the ones CWL gave when the board voted.
What a customer can ask CWL now
The coverage does not list assistance programs, payment-plan terms or budget-billing details for CWL, so those are questions for the utility itself. A call before the increase starts can settle three things: whether the customer is on a plan that levels out monthly payments, whether an arrangement is available if a winter bill runs high, and which month the new rate first shows up.
It also helps to write down the name of the person at CWL, the date and any reference number, in case the same question comes up again after January.
For households on a fixed income, a few dollars a month adds up. At the 1,250-kWh level, the first step alone is about $67 over a year (12 times $5.56), and both steps together reach about $110 a year. The open question for most CWL customers is whether anything on their account can offset that.
Calling CWL about the January rate?
A rate increase that was voted on in August can feel settled, but what a customer pays still depends on the plan and payment arrangement on the account. The calls that change that happen before the first higher bill arrives, not after it.
101 Phone Scripts to Lower Your Bills has 101 calls, word for word, for every company you pay, including electric, gas and water: payment plans, budget billing, help programs. It also has a call log for who you spoke with, what you saved and the reference number, so the CWL call has a record behind it.
Get the phone scripts and call log for the Jonesboro CWL electric rate increase →
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
