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Ship pilots win fee increase
From staff reports
The Daily News
Published July 21, 2009
Ship pilots have won a 5 percent across-the-board increase in the fees they charge to steer passenger liners, oil tankers and other vessels into island and Texas City ports.
The 16-member Galveston-Texas City Pilot Association had filed for a multiyear rate increase calling for an 8 percent hike, followed with an 8 percent increase the following year and 7 percent hikes each of the next three years.
The Board of Pilot Commissioners, a governing body of five volunteers appointed by Gov. Rick Perry, agreed to the 5 percent hike in a vote late Friday after two days of hearings.
The board must vote again on the increase at a meeting Aug. 10. The new rates would go into effect sometime after that vote, perhaps Sept. 1, Vandy Anderson, who chairs the board of commissioners, said.
“It could have been more, but we decided that in these hard times it was best to be conservative,” Anderson said.
The increase applies to a long list of fees pilots charge to steer various sizes and types of vessels in and out of ports under various conditions.
Industry groups including the West Gulf Maritime Association had opposed the rate increase as proposed in the filing.
In 2007, the commissioners approved a 4.9 percent rate increase, which did not increase the pilots’ net income, but was meant to allow the group to recover expenses such as fuel, insurance and replacing boats. The pilots had wanted a 30.6 percent rate increase.
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