Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the American States Water Company conference call discussing the company's first quarter 2015 results. If you would like to listen to the replay of this call, it will begin this afternoon at approximately 5 p.m. Eastern Time and run through Wednesday, May 13, 2015, on the company's website, www.aswater.com. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this call will be recorded and will be limited to no more than 1 hour. In addition, certain matters discussed during this conference call may be forward-looking statements intended to qualify for the safe harbor from liability established by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Please review a description of the company's risks and uncertainties in our most recent Form 10-K and Form 10-Q on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Eva Tang, Chief Financial Officer of American States Water Company. You may begin.

Thank you, Chad. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. On the call with me is our President and CEO, Bob Sprowls. I'll start by discussing the first quarter financial result. Diluted earnings for the first quarter of 2015 were $0.32 per share compared to $0.28 per share for the same period in 2014. Net income for the quarter was $12.1 million compared to $11 million for the same period last year. The increase in our consolidated earnings was primarily driven by a decrease in our expenses at the water segment. Compared to the same period last year, earnings at our water segment increased by $0.02 per share. Earnings for the electric segment increased by $0.01, and earnings at our parent company increased by $0.01 per share. In Q1, water revenues increased by $747,000 to $71.5 million as compared to the same period in 2014. The increase was primarily driven by third year rate increases effective January 1, 2015, for certain rate-making areas as well as increases in -- increases generated from revenue recovery related to capital projects approved through advice letter filings. The increases were partially offset by a decrease of $880,000 in surcharges during the first quarter of 2015 to recover previously incurred costs. The decrease in revenue from these surcharges is offset by corresponding decrease in operating expenses, primarily administrative and general expense, resulting in no impact to pretax operating income. Revenues from electric operations for the quarter were $11 million as compared to $10.5 million for the same period in 2014. The increase in revenue is primarily due to a change in the monthly allocation of the annual base revenue requirement as stipulated in the CPUC's November 2014 final decision on the electric general rate case. Differences in the 2015 versus 2014 monthly revenue…

Thank you, Eva. I appreciate everyone joining us today. For the first quarter, both Golden State Water Company, our regulated water and electric utility subsidiary, and American State Utility Services, our contracted services business, delivered solid earnings. In addition, we've been responding to the ongoing drought situation in California by formulating an action plan to align with the state's emergency regulation. We were also very focused on defending our positions in the general rate case application we have filed for the water segment of Golden State Water, which I'll discuss in more detail a bit later. Let me start by discussing the drought situation in California, the ongoing directives by the state and how that affects Golden State Water Company. In March 2015, the State Water Resources Control Board or the State Board approved expanded emergency regulations targeting a reduction in water use throughout the state. On April 1, 2015, the Governor of California passed an executive order directing the State Board to impose even greater restrictions to achieve an aggregate state-wide 25% reduction in urban water use through February 2016. In April, the State Board proposed additional emergency regulation -- regulations to meet the Governor's executive order. The reductions proposed by the State Board vary by area, depending on historical water use per capita and reductions to date. The State Board approved the emergency regulations yesterday. Golden State Water Company's current water conservation and rationing plan approved by the California Public Utilities Commission or the CPUC is aligned with the July 2014 and March 2015 emergency regulation. We will be filing updated drought response actions with the CPUC for each service area to meet the new mandates. The regulations will not take effect for our customers until they are approved by the CPUC, which, as you know, regulates Golden…

[Operator Instructions] And we have a question from Jonathan Reeder with Wells Fargo.

Bob and Eva, a couple of questions if you don't mind me asking. First on ASUS. It sounds like there were -- the changes on the expense side in the quarter maybe allowed you to accelerate some revenue recognition. I may have missed your explanation of that earlier in the call. Is that accurate?

Yes, actually what happened, Jonathan, is as we go through projects, we have to estimate sort of the cost that it's going to take to complete the project, and as you get closer towards the end of the project, you have a better handle on what those project costs are. During the first quarter, we had some projects that were nearing completion, and we were able to, in effect, have a better margin on those projects because the costs weren't as high as what we had originally estimated. So we were able to bring some of that into income during the first quarter. Eva, do you have anything to add?

And Jonathan, we -- as part of our internal control and we review the progress of each capital project with ASUS on a monthly basis. So this is just part of our continued evaluation on each project, and to result, the estimated cost is not something -- the cost we recorded changes is really to estimate the percentage of completion that impacts the revenue, and this happened throughout the years. And this quarter, probably a little bit more than usual, but it's ongoing process. We always will have this kind of situation either going up or down on the cost estimate.

So if you didn't revise that cost estimate, I mean, do you know what ASUS would have been rather than $0.04? Was it worth a couple of pennies?

Well, understand that we do this every quarter. It just happened to be a little more this time I would say. Eva, is that accurate [ph] ?

Yes, probably more than the first quarter last year.

Yes, yes, really, it's a quarter-to-quarter effect, Jon.

Okay. Does it at all in any way impact, Bob, your expectations for ASUS on a full year basis being similar to 2014?

It does not, Jonathan. We're -- as we talked during the year-end call, we did $0.31 at ASUS for 2014. There were couple of onetime items there that sort of were $0.05, and I think the guidance that we gave to everyone was the $0.26 was probably a decent number for 2015. And I -- we still think it's a decent number for 2015.

Okay, great. In terms of the share repurchase program, sounds like you have around like 350,000 left to repurchase. Any comments around when you expect the remainder of it to be completed?

We continue to make progress on that, and we have made progress since the -- since March 31. So there's a good chance we'll wrap that up either in the third quarter or -- I'm sorry, in the second quarter or in the third quarter.

Okay. So roughly midyear is kind of the goal?

Yes, I think so. I mean, we have an algorithm built up so that we're buying these shares at a discount, and as long as the algorithm works, we end up buying shares. So it's -- we're not out there making decisions. The algorithm allows us to buy stock. If the stock's trading below the 30-day trading average, then it allows us to buy.

Okay. And then last question in terms of the pending GRC. Just wondering from early kind of settlement discussions that you've had and the fact that the case overall isn't asking for a large increase at all, are you pretty optimistic in terms of reaching a settlement agreement more so than perhaps on past cases?

Actually, I'm probably a little less optimistic than we've been in prior years because we have a -- I would say, we're trying to keep sort of our rates flat through this rate case, and so we've got some very good cost reductions in there. And you know from your career ORA will come in and argue basically every dollar in there. So I think we're -- we think there'll likely be more things go to hearings this time than in the past.

[Operator Instructions]

We'll, Chad, if you're not getting questions, I don't want to keep the very important people on the phone any longer than we need to. I'll just go ahead and close here by thanking everyone for their participation today, and I look forward to speaking to all of you as does Eva during the next quarter. Well, thank you, everyone.

This concludes today's American States Water Company Conference Call. As a reminder, the call will be archived on our website and can be replayed beginning Wednesday, May 6, 2015, at 5 p.m. Eastern Time and will run through Wednesday, May 13, 2015. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Take care.