State legislators have crafted utility laws allowing Dominion Virginia Power to have its way on many regulatory matters. But even the General Assembly hasn't (yet) given the electric utility giant permission to change the Gregorian calendar.

Nevertheless, Dominion redefined a "year" as a 27-month period in the rate-increase request it filed this spring with the State Corporation Commission.

Under Dominion's proposal, customers would see a 6.9 percent increase in monthly bills by May 2010, or an extra $7.54 a month for the average customer. The largest component of the hike would cover the company's estimated costs for the coming rate year.

Rate years have long been defined as a 12-month period, but Dominion's filing seeks to recover its anticipated expenses for September 2009 through November 2011.

Dominion attorneys argue that this new definition of a rate year is necessary because the SCC will consider adjustments in rates every two years under a new regulatory system approved by the legislature. But the final schedule for those reviews hasn't been decided, so the 27-month calendar is based on guesswork.

Attorneys for Dominion's large industrial customers point out that the 12-month calendar has existed since at least 1582 and cannot be reconfigured to suit the desires of a public utility.

Consumer counselors with the attorney general's office say the tactic would allow Dominion to collect more than $98 million in excessive charges from its customers.

"The company's existing rates are presently resulting in significant surplus earnings while many of its customers, large and small, are struggling through financial hardships precipitated by the current economic recession," state attorneys argued in a recent filing. "Yet the company seeks to recover from its customers - beginning Sept. 1 - revenues for costs that it predicts will be incurred more than two years into the future."

Indeed, Dominion's return on equity for its Virginia-based generation and operations exceeded 17 percent in 2008, a profit margin that would make other business executives weep. With joy.

As the AG's office notes, state law permits Dominion to raise rates starting Sept. 1 this year, even though SCC judges won't hear the utility's request until January.

If the judges conclude next year that Dominion overstepped its authority by redefining a "rate year," they can provide retroactive relief. But the judges should act this summer to make sure any increase in the base rate covers only appropriate costs.

In the meantime, it's certainly within Dominion's authority to re-embrace the 12-month calendar without judicial intervention and revise its base rate downward before mailing out September's bills.