EDITORIAL POWER CHARGE DWP HAS NO BUSINESS SEEKING ANOTHER RATE HIKE.

"I don't believe there's fat."

So says Ron Deaton, general manager of one of the fattest public entities in a city filled with bloated bureaucracies, the Department of Water and Power. The absence of fat is, presumably, why Deaton thinks the DWP needs to seek a surcharge on electric rates for all its customers.

And that's on top of the 7.4 percent water-rate hike the DWP is also pursuing.

But rest assured, officials tell us, the DWP isn't really gouging its customers. They point to a host of other expenses to justify the rate hike, such as an increase in the cost of natural gas, water-quality and infrastructure improvements, and Owens Valley dust-mitigation and environmental-restoration work.

What they don't mention, of course, is the outrageous salaries and benefits they pay DWP workers, nearly all of whom - even managers - are in the union.

It was little more than six months ago that officials signed off on another round of massive pay hikes - as high as 28 percent - for DWP employees, a move approved by the City Council and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. For DWP workers, who are already paid wages 20 percent or more higher than other city employees doing comparable work, the deal was just icing on the cake. The cost - between $70 million and $130 million over five years - of course, will be borne by ratepayers.

And what do you know, that's about how much the proposed electricity- rate hike would generate at a rate of $25 million a year.

This at a department that blows $51 million a year in overtime. A department that has thousands of acres of property that it can barely even account for. That just lost millions on a bogus loan to a Hawaiian scooter company.

You know, a department with no fat.

Clearly, DWP leadership is out of touch with reality. And that means it's up to Villaraigosa to bring them down to Earth by demanding some accountability, increased efficiency, and an end to all these proposed rate hikes.