By Tim Carpenter, Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — The Kansas Corporation Commission unanimously issued a $60,000 fine to AT&T for racking up dozens of violations of a state law requiring the marking of its buried infrastructure within two days of requests made by excavating companies operating in Wichita, Olathe, Overland Park, Burrton and Kansas City, Kansas.
KCC staff conducted an investigation of nonresponse tickets submitted by excavators from April 30, 2024, to May 30, 2024, in which AT&T failed to mark underground lines within the allotted time.
A $1,000 fine was attached to each of 60 infractions sited by KCC staff in a report submitted to the state regulatory commission. The company didn’t challenge 60 violations documented by KCC staff, but did contest noncompliance in 20 instances. AT&T asserted the company either performed the utility location work on time or the property in question was cleared because there were no buried utilities in that area.
Kansas law required excavators to provide at least two days notice of intent to dig and utility companies were mandated to mark the underground lines within two days.
The KCC’s chief engineer told the three-member commission Wednesday that AT&T apparently made a decision to save money by not completing in a timely manner a portion of requests submitted to the company for flagging underground utility lines.
“I do think it could possibly be a systemic problem that we need to continue to look into,” said KCC engineer Paul Owings. “This is kind of my opinion, it’s a calculated risk they’re making in terms of locating utilities. Potentially, screening tickets that they view as low risk and saying, ‘It costs X amount to locate. We can screen out whatever percentage — 10, 20, 30% — and save this much money.’”
AT&T didn’t respond to Kansas Reflector’s request for comment about the KCC sanction and the company’s defiance of state statute, the risk posed to public safety and possible impairment of service to customers.
KCC attorney Ahsan Latif said the commission’s staff was concerned any period of time chosen to benchmark AT&T’s compliance with the two-day deadline for marking its underground systems would have resulted in a series of violations. He said AT&T was previously fined for the same problem.
“We’re hoping this gets their attention and spurs action on their part,” Latif said.
He said AT&T indicated noncompliance issues were associated with lack of staffing to meet requests from excavators. Overall, AT&T’s annual net income for 2024 was reported to be $10.7 billion.
During a KCC meeting to consider the latest fine of AT&T, KCC member Dwight Keen said it was concerning the company racked up so many infractions in a short interval.
“I’m taking at face value what they told you (Latif),” Keen said. “I’m still have a problem with it. I’m still thinking, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’ AT&T? I just can’t believe it. It really was a risk that they rolled the dice on here. There has to be a level of reasonableness here when some managerial class within this company realizes that they’re throwing caution to the wind.”
Commissioner Annie Kuether said the KCC’s recent assessment of an $8,000 fine against AT&T for failure to timely locate underground systems didn’t deter the company.
“That’s an outrageous number of ignoring the rules,” Kuether said.
Andrew French, chairman of the KCC, urged commission staff to continue monitoring AT&T’s adherence to state law and encouraged KCC staff to propose additional enforcement actions if necessary. He suggested KCC should consider launching a broader investigation of marking compliance across multiple industries.
“We’ve had this issue with other companies, not just AT&T,” French said. “They’re the culprit right now.”
The KCC’s penalty order was issued to Greg Clarkson, an AT&T executive with an office address in Oklahoma City. The document advised the company had 20 days to pay the penalty, but also that AT&T would need to decide within 15 days whether to request a hearing on the KCC’s decision.
