Alamogordo Town News Special Report: Why Your PNM Bill is So High This Month?

Alamogordo N.M. - Delayed meter reads left many of Alamogordo and Ruidoso households with a single bill covering two months of summer power. Here is what happened, how the rate tiers actually work, and what you can do about it.

To many households across Alamogordo, Ruidoso, and Tularosa opened their mailboxes this month to a Public Service Company of New Mexico bill roughly twice the size of anything they had seen before. Some totals ran past $450 for customers accustomed to paying in the low $200s.

The cause was not a rate hike buried in the fine print, and it was not a metering error. It was a staffing shortage in PNM's meter reading operation that pushed bills off schedule and, for many customers, folded two months of the hottest weather of the year into one statement with some meter readings estimated.

PNM says 8,764 meters are in the area with many placed on estimated or delayed billing after the company began estimating reads on July 21. The utility notified customers of the problem on August 3, roughly two weeks after estimation began, and says the staffing shortages have since been resolved.

For households on tight monthly budgets, the arithmetic of a combined bill is punishing regardless of whether it is calculated correctly. A bill that should have arrived as two payments of about $240 instead arrived as one demand for $477.

How PNM's Rate Tiers Actually Work

Much of the confusion and anger circulating locally stems from a genuine misunderstanding of PNM's tiered pricing.

It is worth walking through carefully, because the structure is not intuitive and PNM's bill does very little to explain it.

Residential customers on Rate 1A are billed in three blocks, with the price per kilowatt-hour climbing as usage rises:

Block 3 power costs more than twice what Block 1 power costs. The structure is deliberate: it is designed to reward conservation and penalize heavy consumption.

This proration is the mechanism PNM referred to when it told state regulators that on a multi-month bill, "your energy usage will be spread across the applicable billing months before charges are calculated.

The wording is accurate but nearly opaque to anyone who is not a rate analyst, and it appears nowhere in plain language on the bill itself.

A Real Bill, Worked Through

One Alamogordo household provided its August statement for this article. The meter was read on August 10 covering 62 days and 2,397 kWh — an average of 38.7 kWh per day, consistent with running air conditioning through a record-hot summer.

Because the billing period ran 62 days, each block allowance was doubled:

Would two separate bills have been cheaper?

This is the question nearly every affected customer is asking. We ran it both ways.

Split into two 31-day periods at 1,198.5 kWh each, each month would have been allotted 465 kWh in Block 1 and 465 kWh in Block 2, with the remaining 268.5 kWh landing in Block 3.

Though there is sticker shock by a combined bill it is actually $23.86 lower 

Where proration does help you

For moderate users, day-based proration is genuinely protective. A household averaging 23 kWh per day — about 700 kWh in a normal month — would use roughly 1,400 kWh over 62 days. Under a fixed 900 kWh ceiling, 500 kWh would have been dumped into the most expensive tier. With proration, that household stays entirely in Blocks 1 and 2 and pays nothing at the Block 3 rate.

The customers hit hardest by combined bills are the heaviest users, who were already in Block 3 every summer month and now see two months of it at once.

So Why Does the Bill Feel So Much Worse?

Several pressures landed simultaneously this summer, and the delayed bill concentrated all of them into one envelope.

• Two months of charges at once. The single largest factor. Nothing was double-billed, but nothing was spread out either.
• Summer tier rates. June, July, and August carry PNM's summer pricing, the most expensive of the year.
• Record heat. Sustained high temperatures and humidity push air conditioners into longer cycles, driving households into Block 3 that might otherwise stay in Block 2.
• An April rate increase. The second phase of a rate change approved by the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission took effect April 1, 2026, raising the average residential bill before summer usage was factored in.
• No advance warning. Estimation began July 21. Customers were not notified until August 3. Many learned their bill was doubled only when it arrived.

Where PNM Fell Short

The charges on these bills appear to be correctly calculated under the tariff on file with state regulators. That does not make the episode a non-story.

PNM's meter reading operation failed for a period of weeks, and the resulting cash-flow shock was absorbed entirely by customers. A household that budgets $240 a month for power does not have $477 available on demand simply because the arithmetic is defensible.

The communication failure compounded it. The bill shows "930.000" next to Block 1 with no indication anywhere on the statement that the figure represents 15 kWh per day across 62 days. A customer who knows the standard allowance is 450 kWh sees a number they cannot reconcile and reasonably concludes something is wrong. That confusion has driven a wave of local speculation about deliberate overcharging.

PNM could have prevented nearly all of it with one line of plain text on the affected bills explaining that block limits were doubled for the extended period. It did not.

What You Can Do

If your bill covers more than one month

• Check the days billed. Find "Meter Reading Details" on the last page. Divide each block figure by 15 — the result should match the days billed. If Block 1 shows 930 on a 62-day bill, the proration was applied correctly.
• Check the read type. "Actual" means a meter reader physically read it. "Estimated" means PNM projected your usage. If yours was estimated and you believe it is too high, call or email with your current meter reading and request a review.
• Request a payment arrangement. PNM has offered to split affected bills into two payments at 30-day intervals. A delayed bill alone will not result in disconnection.

PNM contacts

• Dedicated billing line: 844-378-5792
• Email: pafollowup@pnm.com
• Alamogordo and Ruidoso payment centers are open regular hours

Assistance programs

• Good Neighbor Fund — available to eligible customers in Alamogordo, Tularosa, and Ruidoso
• Customers actively receiving LIHEAP or SNAP benefits may qualify for a $175 bill assistance grant

If you believe your bill is still wrong

• New Mexico Public Regulation Commission: (505) 827-7500 or prc.nm.gov
• The NMPRC accepts and investigates formal complaints against regulated utilities

Questions That Remain

Alamogordo Town News is continuing to report on this and is seeking answers on several points. We have been in contact with the leadership of PNM to get clarity and bring accurate information to consumers from PNM leaders. We will have a follow- up statement from PNM on Tuesday afternoon regarding…

• How long were meter reading positions unfilled before estimation began, and was the shortage foreseeable?
• Why did notification to customers come roughly two weeks after estimation started?
• How many of the 8,764 affected accounts received a bill covering more than one billing cycle?
• Will PNM add plain-language explanation of block proration to affected statements?
• Were customers on estimated reads billed accurately once actual reads resumed?

If your PNM bill covered more than one month, or if you received an estimated read you believe was inaccurate contact PNM. 

Methodology: Block thresholds and the 15 kWh per day proration were verified against PNM's published Rate 1A tariff and the company's own bill definitions, which state that the first two blocks are billed up to 450 kWh each with the third block covering usage above 900 kWh. Charges were recalculated independently from an actual customer statement. Usage and rate figures come directly from that bill. PNM's account of the staffing shortage, the estimation start date, and the 8,764 affected meters comes from the company's written response to the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission.

Correction: An earlier version of this report that was not yet validated was published but not pushed for wide release for 3 hours in error, and stated that PNM had improperly shifted usage into higher rate tiers by combining two billing periods. That was incorrect. PNM prorates block allowances by the number of days billed, and the charges reviewed were consistent with the filed tariff. Alamogordo Town News regrets the error, as soon as the error was confirmed, the story was corrected as per above. We regret and apologize for any error in our understanding of the tier 1 limits. 

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