by Brad Dolinski, CEO
Good afternoon North Itasca Electric Member-Owners!
I always get excited for the Annual meeting, a little nervous, but always excited. I want to thank the Northome
community for hosting us this year. Thank you to Teener at the Shining Light Café for making the desserts to share.
This part of my presentation is always the easiest. Saying thank you doesn’t seem like enough for all the fine
employees of North Itasca. I couldn’t be prouder of the team I work with. Our Line Department led by Daryl is
top notch. These folks jump to action no matter the task they face, even presenting at the Annual Meeting. Thank
you to our dedicated Line Department!
My office group has seen a couple major changes this year. Tina Danielson and Kim Giesen made the decision
to retire from North Itasca. Dan Heinecke has taken the reins in the office, Haley Grover took the point contact
duties. We are fortunate to have an amazing team in the office to work with Dan, and for all of us. These office
professionals are the best of the best! I cannot say thank you enough for your dedication and professionalism.
Thank you to Tina and Kim for your years of service and leadership, enjoy your retirement!
Our Board of Directors and your attorney are my guiding light. Our board is well studied and prepared for their
duties. They take the time to attend training provided by Minnesota Rural Electric Association and National Rural
Electric Cooperative Association. Our directors are trained and up to date on the issues facing our cooperative.
Thank you all for your dedication and service to the Member-Owners who are your friends, family and neighbors.
Let’s get down to how 2024 went. It feels weird to talk about last year six months into the new year. 2024
finished just fine. We met our lenders’ financial requirements. We kept our long-standing promise to our Member-
Owners by paying out capital credits. We received a clean audit from an independent firm Brady Martz.
If you look at the graphs in the Annual Meeting edition of the WATTS, they tell the bigger story. In 2024 we
sold less kWh than we did in 2023, but the expense of these purchases was higher than in 2023. Over the past
several years we have continued to face rising rates from our power suppliers. This continues to be the case in
2025; both Great River Energy and Minnkota Power raised rates. These increases forced the difficult decision to
raise rates once again in 2025. I’m expecting rates to continue to climb over the next several years.
Why are rates climbing? I explained the system at previous meetings and in my article. The system works like
our bodies. Our bodies can represent the centralized power grid we are accustomed to today. Our heart is the big
central coal plant. The lines would be our veins and arteries. What happens when you close the big plant and
replace the “pump” by wind and solar? Those resources are generally built in the country far away from the city
center loads they need to serve. Like our bodies, the lines are smaller far away from the pump. This leads to
congestion on the system. We can’t push all the necessary power down the current lines we have available. We
need to rebuild the system we have relied on for years. This costs extensive amounts of money.
I put our board in a difficult position yearly during the budget season. There are fewer “controllable” costs we
can shed to reduce rate pressures. If we look at the budget or another graph in the Annual Meeting edition of
WATTS. Half of our yearly budget goes straight to cost of purchased power. Roughly 25% of the budget goes to
depreciation and loans to investments made through the years. That leaves us with about 25 percent to manage.
We need to maintain and improve the system for you and future generations of Member-Owners. We can’t
afford to stop cutting down trees and maintaining our lines, the reliability and safety of our lines would suffer. The
low hanging fruit has been picked; we also want to ensure we have a safe and reliable system for you to use.
I highly recommend you reach out to North Itasca Electric; we have tools to help you use less total energy in
your homes and businesses. Drew has been doing an outstanding job working with our Member-Owners to help
you save on usage and in turn reduce expenses. There are still tax incentives for air source heat pumps to condition
the air in your homes.