by Brad Dolinski, CEO
Good evening,
We finally got a shot of winter. The lakes are getting much safer from the sounds of it. Red Lake has lifted most of the restrictions and I suspect Lake of the Woods won’t be far behind. I might even make it out on the frozen pond. My buddy Jim was talking about tossing out a few tip-ups when we have our January thaw next weekend. Sounds like a good time to catch up with friends and maybe dust off the fishing gear.
Our directors passed the 2024 budget in December. I hate to bring you bad news, but we are raising rates by 2.2%. I plan to raise the service fee from $49 dollars to $50 per month. Think of this as our shared costs. This covers the maintenance and building costs related to our system. This is where we cover much of the operational and management costs also. The kWh charge on your bill will also increase from $0.1288 to $0.13/kWh. This is where we captured the rate increase from GRE.
I receive many questions about the minimum you pay every month. We share this system with our friends and neighbors as a Member-Owner of the cooperative. This is much like owning a house together. When the roof leaks, we all pay to fix it. Maintenance costs at the cooperative work the same way.
Currently our crews are working on replacing poles that have been rejected. This is shared among all members of the cooperative. We will replace one bucket truck in 2024, this is another shared cost because that truck is used everywhere on the system.
We look at the many different accounts yearly and determine if they are a shared cost or individual cost per member. Shared costs are applied to the member minimum. Individual costs or variable costs are directed to the kWh charge.
I must give a huge shout out to Daryl and the line crew. In December the crew was able to place the new transformer in the Jesse Lake Substation. In the summer of 2022 that substation was hit by lightning. This caused significant damage to the equipment in the sub, including the main transformer we rely on.
We worked through emergency management to get assistance replacing this transformer. In the fall of 2022, we had to make a financial decision about firm or market pricing. Thankfully the dice rolled the right way and we decided to take the firm quote. I have been told that the decision saved us almost $200,000.
Daryl and our engineer Rachel (from Star Energy Services), worked through the details to get what we needed for a flawless couple of days in the field. Daryl had to line up a crane to remove the old and place the new. Great River Energy was there to help us with a portable substation and their field technicians. Our guys were there making the connections in the sub, changing old equipment out that was either just old or damaged by the storm. Everything flowed extremely well. All of this and many more steps happened without an interruption to our Member-Owners’ homes. The work was performed safely and very professionally, I might add.
With the new year under way, I want to recognize our office professionals as well. There’s never any down time for this crew. This is when things really pick up. All the many accounts need to be balanced for the month and the year to prepare for the upcoming audit. The end of year stress is on along with the normal monthly duties. I try to be especially thankful for the hard work during this time, having a bowl of candy in my office can sometimes help also. Thank you for all your hard work, I’m so fortunate to work with the professionals I do.
Here’s to doing more in 2024!
By your side! Miigwech
Brad
