San Rafael ratepayers saw a 14% rate cut in April, but the agency behind those lower bills is under pressure to explain how it got there.

At MCE's finance committee meeting Monday, Aug. 3, board members and a public advocate pushed for the renewable energy agency's draft annual audit to include plain-language explanations of what drove $701.4 million in operating revenues and how its energy contracts performed, the Marin Independent Journal reported.

"I don't feel like a member of the public or whoever could read this and understand what happened," Belvedere Mayor Sally Wilkinson, a finance committee member, said at the meeting. "You just lump your entire business into a line item that says energy contracts."

Those contracts accounted for $652 million of MCE's $721.3 million in total operating expenses for the fiscal year that ended March 31. The agency held $660 million in assets and set aside $80 million in a rate-stabilization reserve that helped fund the April rate cut.

The numbers are strong. But committee members said the draft report failed to tell the story behind them.

Lafayette Vice Mayor John McCormick, also on the committee, said he wanted the audit's opening section to highlight the strong performance and the $80 million deferral. Dan Segedin of the Marin Conservation League agreed, telling the committee, "There is a positive story here. Knowing a bit more than what it says, it doesn't really tell the story."

The push for transparency comes as MCE continues to reckon with governance failures exposed earlier this year. Board inquiries revealed former CEO Dawn Weisz was overpaid $60,000 in 2024 and did not follow board-set procedures for signing energy contracts. Weisz left the agency in June, one day after the Marin County Civil Grand Jury released a 49-page report finding the board had failed to adequately oversee the agency.

MCE Finance Manager Efren Oxlaj called the current review "perhaps one of the most intensive" audits, noting auditors examined compensation issues and contract-signing protocols.

Interim CEO Vicken Kasarjian, who served as chief operating officer since 2018, is planning to discuss procurement costs and timing at upcoming board meetings, according to the Marin Independent Journal. Those discussions could lead MCE to move away from spending millions on energy market credits to boost its clean energy totals in state reports. The Marin Conservation League has previously estimated MCE spent $330 million over two years on such credits, and that the agency's long-term clean supply from solar, wind and other renewables provides less than half of the electricity it procures.

MCE's full 34-member board is scheduled to meet Thursday, Aug. 20, when the audit report is expected to be presented. The agency serves 1.8 million customers across Marin, Contra Costa, Napa and Solano counties.