Tricounty Rural Electric Cooperative’s 87th Annual Meeting was held virtually on Wednesday, Sept. 18. Board election results were announced, with one board member being re-elected and a new one joining.
Election results:
- District 5 trustee winner: Bradley Haupricht - Representing Lucas County: Providence Township, Fulton County: Sections 1, 12, 25, and 36 of Swan Creek Township SE, and Section 24 of Swan Creek Township NE
- Code of Regulations: Passed with changes.
This year’s trustee elections were conducted by mail, and electronic voting was allowed through Tricounty’s website. Voting ran from Aug. 1 through Aug. 31 and was conducted by a third-party company called Survey and Ballot Systems
Before you read our annual report and review the financial statements on the following pages, I want to take a moment to remind you of who we are as a cooperative and why your membership means so much.
Cooperatives like Tricounty were founded in the 1930s, when big electric companies were unwilling to take on the costs of building in rural areas. Providing electricity to small towns and farms spread over miles of countryside was not easy, but it was worth it. The electrification of rural areas paved the way for growth, enabling families and businesses to plant roots and thrive in beautiful communities like ours.
At Tricounty, we average about seven members per mile of electric line, while larger, investor-owned utilities serve an average of 32 customers per mile of electric line. This means the cost of building and maintaining our electric distribution system is much higher per member. Despite this difference, we are still able to offer competitive rates because we are a not-for-profit organization. We answer to our members, not investors. Our rates are a direct
reflection of the costs that we pay to provide you with high-value essential services, and we give our margins (what other businesses call “profits”) back to you through capital credits.
Recent years have brought significant changes to the energy industry. Increased electric use, overreaching government policies, and supply chain struggles are a few of the many factors that are driving energy costs up in Ohio and across the nation. In 2023, one investor-owned utility in Ohio implemented a 28% rate increase to keep up with costs. As a
cooperative, we are part-owners of our power supplier, Buckeye Power. This ownership helps us insulate our members from volatile markets. While all utilities are facing the realities of rising costs, we are thankful that we can offer our members some stability even though our costs are rising dramatically.
As a Tricounty member-owner, you have a say in how we do business. You elect our board of trustees, who are members just like you and are responsible for keeping our members’ best interest at the forefront of everything we do. Transparency is important to us, and I hope you will take some time to read our annual report and stay informed about our financial health, key projects, programs, services, and governmental policies that impact your cooperative.
Thanks for tuning in,
Brett Perkins, general manager
More information, including financials, is available below. Please give our office a call with any questions. Thanks for being a member of your community cooperative!
As we prepare this annual report and finalize plans for our annual meeting, we are pleased to provide another positive report on the financial condition and operation of your cooperative for the past year. A part of the margins generated by your cooperative was used to make capital credit retirements this year. As a cooperative member-owner, you benefit in a way no investor-owned utility customer ever will. Your capital credit account is a benefit that is exclusive to Tricounty member-owners. The co-op’s good financial position allowed your board to feel confident in retiring $563,918 in patronage capital last December. This retirement was the remainder of the 2004, 15% of the 2005, and 10% of the 2022 allocations, to current and former members. This was the 46th consecutive general retirement of capital credits made by Tricounty. In addition, $197,320 was paid to deceased member estates during the year. Including this $761,238 from the past year, Tricounty has returned more than $21.8 million in capital credits to our member-consumers.
The total assets of your cooperative now exceed $22.8 million. We continue to build line extensions, install new services, and rebuild older lines. Our right-of-way (tree trimming) maintenance program helps prevent power outages and reduces damage to our overhead lines during storms.
Tricounty’s 87th annual meeting, consisting of announcement of election results for District 5 trustee and Code of Regulation changes and management and auditor reports, will be posted to our website, www.tricountyelectriccoop.coop, on September 18. Members can go to the website and watch and listen at their convenience.
Should you have any questions as you review the accompanying financial data or view the online reports, please feel free to give us a call.
With the annual reports now being posted online and in the magazine, the board and staff were available to the membership to answer any questions at this year’s Member Appreciation Day at the Fort Wayne Zoo on Saturday, August 3. Nearly 700 members and guests enjoyed the day. Thank you to those who attended and made our day so successful.
Tricounty’s primary objectives are to provide SAFE, AFFORDABLE, and RELIABLE electricity to our members.
Safety
The safety of our members, employees, and community is the highest priority for our cooperative. Our cooperative continues to have monthly safety meetings for employees, has performed high-voltage safety training for our local fire departments, and publishes safety tips in our Ohio Cooperative Living magazine. Tricounty had no lost-time accidents or injuries this past year. Our goal is to keep all our communities and members aware of the dangers involved in dealing with electricity.
Affordability
The most difficult thing that your cooperative trustees and management must do is determine the rates that we charge our members. One of the operating principles of your cooperative is to provide reliable electric service at affordable rates while maintaining the cooperative as a financially secure business, now and in the future. We strive to keep our rates competitive while balancing ever-rising expenses and meeting the financial targets required by our financial partners. Outside pressures of increasing material costs, proposed EPA regulations, and increasing wholesale power costs will continue to be the challenge in the future. We strive to be financially stable, operate with the same level of service, maintain our distribution system, and refund capital credits. Tricounty remains one of the lowest-costing cooperatives in the state, while we strive to maintain the quality of service you expect.
Reliability
Tricounty continues to invest in maintenance and capital improvements to provide you, the members, with the reliability of power you have come to expect. We continue to rebuild aging lines, trim trees, and improve our system. We have been working with our regional transmission provider to have the transmission lines rebuilt from Defiance to Weston, which will provide bidirectional transmission feeds to our McClure, Maroe, and Malinta substations. This transmission improvement and our new $3.1 million Maroe substation on the corner of State Route 109 and State Route 18 will increase transmission and distribution reliability in the area. The biggest challenges to reliability moving forward are the newly proposed EPA regulations and the ever-looming capacity issue. With baseload generation plants closing due to the EPA regulations and demand for more electricity ever increasing, rolling brownouts will become more of a possibility in the near future.
Community
One of the Seven Cooperative Principles is “Concern for Community.” Tricounty is committed to supporting our community and future leaders. That is why we were proud to offer a local high-schooler a spot on the 2024 Rural Electric Youth Tour. This year, Lani Rosebrook was our delegate on the Youth Tour trip to Washington, D.C., which occurred in June. Tricounty also provided eight scholarships to area students in 2024. Receiving Children of Members Scholarship awards were: Beatrice Barrett, Devin Dietrich, Kaitlyn Harkey, Brendan Kronberg, MaKayla Meller, Megan Meyer, Vance Norrington, and Brenton Rettig.
Closing
Your cooperative has been committed to providing our members with safe, reliable, and affordable electricity. We are excited about the projects, programs, and services designed to enhance the quality of life for our members. We will continue to put safety first and are committed to providing excellent service to our members. Your Board of Trustees and employees appreciate and thank you for your cooperation and support throughout the past year.
