Merger benefits increased significantly from '11 to '12 to '13. As I said, Gary's going to speak more to that, but this is the pretax earnings impact associated with those and you'll see that, that's in excess of $1 billion.

We're also targeting O&M reductions beyond the synergies of between $75 million and $175 million in 2012 and 2013. We expect asset sales in the range of $800 million to $900 million per year, and we expect to reduce debt by $1.5 billion to $2.2 billion over this time period.

...we continue to look for opportunities to reduce O&M. I just want to give you one, very quick example, of what we're doing on the O&M side.

We closed the transaction February 28 of last year. There are roughly 75 major applications that have to get integrated between the 2 companies. For some of the operating savings to occur, those systems have to be integrated. I'm pleased to say that our IT folks are basically going to integrate all of those applications in record time, and they'll make their cut-over shortly. They've had 5 test runs, so you'll see that some of the synergy has been accelerated and some of the synergies too, become, as we integrate our systems. And we're quite pleased with where we are. We'll continue to look for incremental costs. It's kind of our nature. But we're not going to do anything simply for a short-term benefit that puts the company at a longer-term risk. That's just not something we are going to do. Everything we are doing is to place FirstEnergy in the best possible forward position.

Meyers said the companies have been aware of the issues and will assist the PSC.

“It’s just an exercise that we need to go through, and hopefully, when we come to the end of the investigation and the recommendations and everything else, we can be stronger for it and have a good outcome for our customers,” Meyers said.

The problems stem from a series of issues connected with several large storms and with FirstEnergy's acquisition of the utilities' former parent, Allegheny Energy in early 2011, according to company spokesman Todd Meyers.

Bills are based on alternate months of actual meter readings and estimates, Meyers said.

During storm response — including, since the acquisition, Hurricane Irene in August 2011, the derecho in June 2012 and superstorm Sandy in October 2012, as well as smaller storms — meter readers may be called off their routes to watch lines that have been reported down until line crews arrive. They return to reading meters on schedule, so the readings that are missed during those periods aren't made up and result in three estimates in a row — which can result in large true-up bills when those meters are read in the fourth month.

In addition, as FirstEnergy began transitioning from Allegheny's system in which meter readers conducted meter maintenance and other functions as well to its own system in which they only read meters, some staff in the Potomac Edison service area switched to other positions, creating a temporary staffing shortage in mid-2012, Meyers said.

And another phase of transition in early 2013 called "renumbering," in which routes were adjusted, also resulted in a one-time long billing cycle, he said — which, again, created problems primarily in the eastern panhandle.

Meyers said that most of the company’s past problems with the meter readers are “in the rearview mirror.”

“We look forward to going to the hearing and giving our side of the story,” Meyers said. “We’re prepared to go there and cooperate with the PSC, and I think we have a good story to tell.”

"We take our billing process very seriously," said Gilliam. "It's also personal and private. The conversation is between a customer service rep and the customer."