Norris Electric Holds Annual Meeting

(LEFT TO RIGHT: GORDON McCLURE, GARY BUSER, GILBERT GARBE AND NORRIS ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE MANAGER KEITH McKINNEY AT THE 77TH ANNUAL MEETING OF MEMBERS)

Norris Electric Cooperative held its 77th annual meeting of members Saturday at Newton Community High School.

The members, who filled the gym floor seating, heard reports on upgrading lines, using the online prepay option, the contract with Southern Illinois Power Cooperative and continued education of its board of directors.

Board President Gordon McClure announced that the cooperative is not raising the rates this year. The goal is to try to hold rates steady for a couple of years. Norris Electric rates are consistently in the bottom five cooperatives in the state out of about 26 Illinois rural electric cooperatives.

McClure went on to say, “We were happy to retire capital credits of almost $1.5 million this year. Our plans are to try to retire capital credits for the next few years without raising rates.”

He also announced that in order to manage the cooperative, both the staff and the directors are better educated than just a few years ago. He informed members that out of the 11-member board, last year nine achieved the Certified Credential Director certificate. “That’s all of the board members being certified except the two newest that came on the board last year and those two new directors are halfway to earning that certificate. Our directors are always making educated decisions based on what they think the members would desire and represent you, the members to the best of their ability.”

Norris Electric Manager Keith McKinney welcomed and thanked the members for attending the 2015 Annual Meeting. McKinney informed everyone that in 2014 the co-op upgraded more than 16 miles of line from single phase to 3 phase, retired more than five miles of old overhead line and installed more than eight miles of new underground lines. He reported that work continues as Norris Electric brings in a new large member. The natural gas compression site will be using a single 22,000 hp motor. It does requires Norris to build more than three miles of new 69kv transmission along with some associated equipment.

McKinney encouraged members to get a password from the cooperative in order to view their daily, and hourly, electrical use online and to sign up for prepaid billing.

Board Treasurer Dean Dietrich reported that the cooperative had revenue of $45,236,231 and 65% of that amount was used by the cooperative to buy the power members needed from Southern Illinois Power Cooperative. About 24% of the total was used for operating expenses, depreciation expenses and taxes and the remaining 11%, which includes interest revenue and other non-operating margins is allocated to the members as capital credits.

During the meeting, one new director was seated and three directors were reseated to three years. The newly-seated director was Gary Buser of Crawford County and re-seated were Gilbert Garbe of Effingham County, Gordon McClure of Jasper County and Dan Scherer of Lawrence County.

Norris Electric Cooperative is a member of Touchstone Energy — an alliance of 750 local, consumer-owned electric utilities around the country. The co-op serves more than 19,313 meters over 4,072 miles of line in parts of Clark, Crawford, Cumberland, Effingham, Jasper, Lawrence, Richland and Wabash counties. For more information visit www.norriselectric.com.