§24-2-8. System of accounts to be kept by public utilities;
uniform accounting system for public service
districts and municipally owned public utilities.
(a) The commission may establish a system of accounts to be
kept by public utilities or classify public utilities and
establish a system of accounts for each class, and prescribe the
manner in which such accounts shall be kept. It may also in its
discretion prescribe the forms of accounts, records and memoranda
to be kept by such public utilities, including the accounts,
records and memoranda of the movement of traffic as well as the
receipt and expenditure of moneys, and any other forms, records
and memoranda which in the judgment of the commission may be
necessary to carry out any of the provisions of this chapter. In
the case of utilities subject to the provisions of the act of
Congress entitled "An act to regulate commerce," approved
February four, eighteen hundred and eighty-seven, and the acts
amendatory thereof and supplemental thereto, the system of
accounts established by the commission and the forms of accounts,
records and memoranda prescribed by it shall not be inconsistent
with the systems and forms from time to time established for such
utilities by the interstate commerce commission. But nothing
herein contained shall affect the power of the commission to
prescribe forms of accounts, records and memoranda covering
information in addition to that required by the interstate
commerce commission. The commission may, after hearing had upon
its own motion or upon complaint, prescribe by order the accounts
in which particular outlays and receipts shall be entered, charged or credited.
(b) The commission shall, on or before the thirty-first day
of December, one thousand nine hundred seventy-nine, adopt rules
and regulations prescribing and establishing a uniform system of
accounts and accounting to be kept by all public service
districts and municipally owned public utilities, and, in so
doing, the commission shall confer with and seek the assistance
of the tax commissioner in order to coordinate any such
accounting systems and procedures with any such procedures or
systems adopted by the state tax department governing the fiscal
affairs of municipalities. Such rules and regulations shall
establish a date by which all utilities are to conform with any
such accounting procedures and systems adopted by the commission.
Any such rules and regulations prescribing a system or procedure
of accounting to be kept by such public utilities may classify
such utilities and establish a system or procedure of accounts
for each class and prescribe the manner of keeping such accounts.
The commission may also ascertain, determine and prescribe what
are proper and adequate charges for depreciation of the several
classes of property for each utility and may prescribe such
changes as it may deem appropriate in charges made for
depreciation as it finds necessary.