Over the past few months you have read about the impact clean air legislation and the cap and trade plan could have on our electric bills. We have other issues closer to home that will impact us as well. The board and the staff have an obligation to keep the cooperative financially healthy and that calls for a continual evaluation of revenues and how they are generated through our rate structures.

There are two parts to your electric bill. The first is what the cooperative pays our power provider to supply power. This is a direct pass through cost with no mark up to the member. This accounts for roughly 60-70% of your bill. The remainder of your bill is what the cooperative uses to maintain the entire distribution system and all administrative functions a utility must perform to provide service, meet mandated requirements, and be a responsible corporate member of the community. I’ll refer to this as the Tipmont portion of your bill for the sake of this article. The Tipmont portion of the bill is further divided into two elements.

The first part of the Tipmont portion of the bill is the monthly “Service Charge.” This is a fixed charge designed to cover the costs for the physical assets that are constructed and put in place to serve the entire membership. Each member should pay a set fee appropriately assigned across the rate classes to cover these costs. At some point in the future we hope to change our bill format so this cost will be...