ANNUAL MEETING
CEO/General Manager Mitch McCumber addresses the membership at New-Mac's 2011 Annual Meeting.
Copyright 2011 • New-Mac Electric Cooperative • Neosho, MO • 417-451-1515
New-Mac Electric Cooperative of Neosho, Mo., announced that 2011 will mark fourteen straight years that the co-op has returned funds back to member-customers in the form of capital credit payments and bill credits.
“I will tell you that is something we are really proud of,” Mitch McCumber, New-Mac’s chief executive officer, told members at the co-op’s annual meeting at Crowder College on Oct. 29, “especially since we continue to be hit hard by rising power costs.”
The co-op, at the meeting, began distributing approximately $1,136,000 in this year’s capital credit refund checks to members. The capital credit refunds go to people who were New-Mac members during 1994, and are based on their electric usage. Members who didn’t pick up their checks at the meeting will receive them in the mail.
McCumber also announced that New-Mac members will be receiving a $610,000 year-end refund of power costs, which will be given as a credit on members’ bills received in December. Overall, in the past fourteen years, New-Mac has refunded capital credits and rate adjustments to members totaling $16,700,000.
However, McCumber also said rising power costs could possibly force the co-op to pass along a rate increase in 2012. New-Mac has already been notified that it will have to pay more for electricity next year, however the co-op won’t know specifics about its 2012 electric rates until the budgeting process is completed at the end of the year. He said the co-op will inform members about next year’s rates immediately in the January co-op newsletter.
A series of wholesale price increases forced New-Mac to raise its rates to members in 2008 and 2009. But the co-op has been able to maintain stable rates during the past year, and has only had to implement general rate increases two times in the past twenty years.
McCumber told members that 2010 was another strong financial year for the co-op. In its annual report, New-Mac Electric revenues topped $35 million in 2010, and the co-op now shows more than $91 million in total assets.
McCumber told the gathering that the electric utility industry is experiencing “winds of change” in the generation of power.
“It used to be that nearly all of the electricity we use was generated at power plants that burned coal,” McCumber told the gathering. This past summer, New-Mac’s power suppliers, KAMO Power in Vinita and Associated Electric in Springfield, brought online a new 540-megawatt power plant at Chouteau, Oklahoma, which uses natural gas and special heat-recovery technology to generate electricity.
In addition, earlier this year Associated signed an agreement to buy additional wind power from a new generation farm being built near Pawhuska, Oklahoma, and last year also began operating a fourth wind farm in northern Missouri. In one recent month, about five percent of Associated’s electric generation came from wind power.
“Think about it this way. Now when you flip on a light switch, it is likely some of the electricity to light that bulb was generated – literally – by the winds of change we’ve been talking about,” McCumber said.
McCumber went on to say that the Environmental Protection Agency is planning to implement tougher regulations on power plant emissions, even though Congress has failed to approve a carbon tax. Nonetheless, since 1994, McCumber said Associated has spent about $1 billion to meet environmental regulations at its power plants.
Also at the meeting, McCumber paid tribute to the victims and survivors of the Joplin tornado. He said the storm also did considerable damage to parts of the New-Mac system and to incoming electric transmission lines, producing some lengthy power outages. He also said co-op crews worked tirelessly to make sure outages were minimal during last February’s snow and bitter cold, and last summer’s extreme heat.
The co-op reported steady progress during the past year in completing construction projects, such as substation upgrades, pole change-outs, re-conductoring and line conversions. In addition, New-Mac will spend approximately $1.7 million this year on right-of-way brush clearing in order to improve electric service reliability.
New-Mac Electric, headquartered in Neosho, Mo., serves some 17,000 member accounts primarily in Newton, McDonald and Jasper Counties.
MEETING SLIDESHOWS
