Portland General Electric will close its five remaining community offices this spring and start picking up the fees associated with customers making walk-in payments via Western Union or CheckFreePay locations at grocery chains and other retail outlets.

PGE says several of the 15 employees who staff the community offices today will retire or transfer to its call center at the same pay, while the remainder may be eligible for severance.

In addition, the utility will no longer allow field staff to accept last-minute cash payments from overdue customers to avoid shutting off their electrical service.

The move will primarily affect low-income customers, a factor that worries ratepayer advocates and community activists.

The community offices are a throwback to when a substantial portion of utility customers paid their bills in cash at an office location. Over the years, the 20 community offices that were once spread throughout PGE’s service territory have been winnowed to five locations in East Portland, Gresham, Hillsboro, Woodburn and Salem.

PGE says it has seen a 48% decline in payment volume at the offices in the last decade and those walk-in customers now account for less than 1% of its customer payments. It plans to close the offices between February and June, and is now alerting customers about other options. Other utilities have already taken the same steps.

“It’s an outdated way of doing business, said Kelsey Olvera, who manages the community offices for PGE. “Customers want more from us. They want more options, more locations and longer hours. We want to give them that advantage now.”

Olvera said that beginning Jan. 1, the utility will pick up the $1.50 service charge when customers pay at a grocery store or retail outlet via Western union or CheckFreePay. That opens up hundreds of locations for customers to pay their bills at no charge, she said.

Keith Kueny, the energy policy coordinator for the Community Action Partnership of Oregon, characterized the closures as a cost-cutting move by the utility that doesn’t serve low-income customers. He said customers who still use the community offices often don’t have bank accounts or cell phones, live check-to-check and often pay strictly with cash.

He also panned the utility’s decision to have its field representatives stop accepting last-minute cash payments from customers being threatened with shut off. The utility has cited safety concerns, though Kueny is skeptical.

“There have been no recorded incidents or problems,” he said. “It’s just another way for them to redirect money to shareholders. At this point they can shut off automatically without sending anyone by.”

PGE says it does still send field representatives to knock on customers doors when a shut off is imminent, and those employees have the discretion to halt shut offs while customers make a payment in another fashion, Olvera said.

Bob Jenks, executive director of the Citizen’s Utility Board of Oregon, a ratepayer advocacy group, said he’s more worried about making sure customers know the transition is happening than keeping the offices open in the long term or maintaining the field employees ability to take cash payments.

“They need to be careful with this, and make sure people understand what they’re doing and why they’re doing it,” he said.