By Brad Dolinski

Good afternoon NIECI!

What a change a year makes.  I have snowmobiles running through the parking lot again!  It’s good to see people out enjoying the local businesses we have and amazing trail system.  I tip my hat to the countless hours our dedicated volunteers invest in the sports we love.  We have snowmobile and ATV clubs in our communities that provide opportunities to enjoy the wilderness around us.  Without your commitment and willingness to work with the State of MN, local government, and landowners we wouldn’t have these opportunities.  Thank you!

Our board met in December and approved the budget for 2025.  Once again, we were faced with the difficult decision to raise rates.  After detailed presentations and deep discussions the rates were set for 2025 as follows starting 1/1/2025:

Approved Rates                               2023                     2024                     2025

Service Availability                        $49                       $50                     $53.00

kWh                                                $1288                 $.13                     $.1378

Dual Fuel                                        $.0673                  $.0673                 $.07335

ETS (Storage)                                $.0581                 $.0581                 $.06258

I have shared the challenges faced around North Itasca Electric Cooperative often.  This month I want to share some outstanding news.  I’ve written about the opportunities for grants in past articles.  We applied for roughly five grants.  I am very proud to report we were selected for one of the grants.  This investment in the system will improve reliability for decades to come. 

Through this grant we will be upgrading the Wirt Substation.  This sub direly needs attention, substation transformers are very expensive.  We were looking for opportunities to make an investment in the new transformer and equipment in that sub.  Along with rebuilding Wirt, we will install new reclosures in several other substations.  These devices provide information needed for our engineering model along with being adjustable for future needs.  Finally, we will be replacing some overhead lines to three-phase underground to serve our community of Inger.  This improvement will help to balance loads and prevent outages to communities along that line. 

This grant opportunity was made possible by the hard work of many of our staff.  Special shout out to our Line Superintendent Daryl Pederson, Office Manager Tina Danielson, Kristi Robinson and Rachel Hockert from Star Services, along with leadership from MREA.  Thank you all for helping NIECI’s application to rise to the top.

With the start of the new year, we jump into a very busy time for our Office Professionals.  Closing out 2024 means the audit preparation begins.  I need to thank our hard working group here, along with the normal monthly duties, focus on the audit is extra load managed by amazing individuals.  Tina, Krista, Gina, Sheila, and Haley, thank you for all your hard work and dedication to the Member-Owners and communities we serve. 

February appears we will have a busy month.  Our directors and I will head to the GRE Regional meeting in St. Cloud to get an update from their leadership.   We will also head to the Capitol to meet with our legislators in St. Paul.  Our intention is to discuss the Nuclear Moratorium.  I look forward to reporting back to you next month. 

By your side! Miigwech

Brad