Lafayette Mayor-President Joel Robideaux has replaced the interim directors of the Lafayette Utilities System and its sister entity LUS Fiber as part of an expanded investigation into millions in suspicious payments between the two utilities.

Interim LUS Director Jeff Stewart and interim Fiber Director Teles Fremin were removed from their positions late Friday by Robideaux and will return to different jobs within each of the two operations.

More:LUS paid Fiber millions for monitoring service it already had with another system

The move comes as local and state officials investigate payments LUS has made over the years to LUS Fiber as the cable and internet utility faced financial struggles. Robideaux has turned over details of more than $8 million in payments to the Public Service Commission, noting that he's concerned they may have violated a state prohibition against utilities managed by local governments subsidizing a sister utility.

Robideaux said Friday he had to make the personnel changes to remove any appearance of bias as the investigation moves forward.

"It is important that we provide the PSC with assurance that this review process removes any internal bias that might be associated with long-term employees. The best way to accomplish that is with fresh sets of eyes,” Robideaux said in a statement Friday.

“As we look to the future of LUS Fiber, it’s important that we get past these issues and focus on remaining at the forefront of innovation," he said.

A review by The Daily Advertiser of payments from LUS to LUS Fiber identified other large payments not previously reported to the PSC. LUS paid its sister internet and cable utility more than $4 million over eight years for communication hubs located throughout the area, according to invoices and payments reviewed by the Advertiser.

More:Emails: 'Significant LUS Fiber revenue source' came from LUS duplicate service payments

As the internal investigation deepens into payments to Fiber by LUS and the city-parish government, Robideaux has appointed his Chief Administrative Officer Lowell Duhon as the new interim director for LUS. Kayla Miles, business administrator for Fiber, will serve as interim director of the telecom utility.

Chief Communications Officer Cydra Wingerter will take over as interim CAO while the administration completes its probe of the entities.

Robideaux did not seek re-election for a second term.

The staffing changes come after the mayor's office launched an investigation into millions paid to LUS Fiber.

The PSC, in a June audit, determined LUS had made $1.5 million in improper payments to Fiber for unused services at dozens of sewage lift stations. Fiber returned the payments after they were discovered.

More:LUS paid more than $8 million to related Fiber system for questionable monitoring service

In July, Robideaux revealed more than $8 million in questionable payments over nearly eight years, reporting them to the PSC after the state commission identified a series of substantial payments Fiber had received.

Those payments were for an outage-monitoring system that Robideaux said had questionable value because it tapped into only a fraction of LUS's customer base. The payments for that system also were made after LUS installed a separate outage monitoring service as part of a broad federally-funded upgrade.

Robideaux said in his July letter to the PSC that he was concerned the payments violated the state's fair competition laws, prompting the PSC to urge Robideaux to conduct a comprehensive review of all payments between the sister utilities.

Former LUS Director Terry Huval referred to the outage system payments as a "significant LUS Fiber revenue source" in emails as the money began flowing in 2010, leading to questions that the suspect payments were used to bolster Fiber's struggling bottom line. Huval retired last year after Robideaux announced he was separating the LUS and LUS Fiber departments that previously were managed as one.

Fiber was facing a sizable revenue shortfall at the time Huval created the LUS payments for the monitoring system, emails show.

More:State audit raises concerns about self-dealing between LUS and Fiber, unnecessary payments

In its previous audit, the PSC identified "substantial" annual payments from multiple divisions of LUS and departments within Lafayette Consolidated Government, which will be scrutinized in the administration's ongoing review of payments.

The Advertiser requested a decade of Fiber's billings to LUS, LCG and Fiber to study the payments.

Fiber bills LUS $52,360 each month for internet services to some 77 smart meter gatekeepers, which act as neighborhood-level communication hubs for monitoring LUS's nearly 65,000 wireless smart meters, according to the Advertiser's analysis of Fiber billings to LUS.

Each of those hubs has cost LUS $680 every month since late 2011 for a 100 Mbps connection speed, for which Fiber's residential division charges customers $50 a month, though the costs for providing commercial services aren't the same for residential internet.

That adds up to another $4 million in payments over eight years for an outage system that duplicated the intended services of the $8 million power outage monitoring system that Robideaux reported in July and that LCG has been unable to prove was ever used.

The Advertiser also analyzed payments from LUS's Electric and Wastewater divisions, highlighted by the PSC in its correspondence with the city-parish. Those amount to nearly $100,000 in monthly internet service costs, expenses for LCG that are expected to be scrutinized in the coming weeks.

LUS's Electric Division pays Fiber $60,000 a month for internet services to electrical equipment at some 142 telephone poles, each costing $420 in monthly service charges for 30 Mbps connections. Its Wastewater Division adds another $38,000 in monthly charges from Fiber for services to about 95 sewage lift stations, each also costing $420 a month for a 30 Mbps service, according to invoice and billing records reviewed by the Advertiser.

Those and other services add up to just more than $177,000 a month — or $2.1 million annually — from LUS to Fiber across dozens of different accounts and divisions. LCG pays another $102,000 every month to Fiber, or about $1.2 million a year, for phone, TV and internet services across about 50 separate accounts.

LCG pays about $17,000 every month through its Traffic Control Division for 10 Mbps services to some 190 traffic light control stations. Additionally, Lafayette's Police Department pays $175 a month for service to each of 59 telephone pole cameras, adding up to about $14,000 monthly, for the same 100 Mbps service that LUS pays $680 per month to provide to each of its smart meter gatekeepers.

Those payments, though not yet specifically identified as questionable by local or state officials, have at least caught the PSC's eye and will likely be among payments included in the administration's internal review of Fiber's billings to LUS and LCG.

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