Thursday, June 12, 2003 | 11:23 a.m.
A more than $10.5 million severance package Kansas City, Mo.-based Sprint Corp. will pay its ousted chief executive William T. Esrey is not expected to show up in the telephone bills of Las Vegas customers.
Detra Page, a Las Vegas spokeswoman for Sprint, said local ratepayers are insulated by the phone company's state regulatory structure.
"It should not have any impact on local rates," she said. "We are in a plan for alternative regulation, and our rates are frozen."
Sprint's local regulatory plan with the state Public Utilities Commission freezes rates on basic telephone services for five years in exchange for pricing flexibility on services subject to residential phone competition. Those competitive services include calling features, such as voice mail and call waiting.
The current rates were set last year and will not be opened again until June 2007, said David Chairez, a spokesman for the PUC.
He agreed that the severance package would not raise local rates.
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