Electric co-op pays out $671,000

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Hundreds of consumer members of St. Croix Electric attended an Open House Friday, Oct. 15. The event was held at the co-op’s headquarters in Hammond and featured a green and gold Green Bay Packers theme for the annual October co-op month event. The co-op’s annual winter warm-up clothing drive was also kicked off at the open house.

The biggest attraction of the day wasn’t the full-sized Brett Favre cutout to be given away or the Green Bay Packer prize drawings, it was the distribution of capital credits totaling $671,000.

Capital credits are the profit from operations each year and are returned to the members as the financial condition of the co-op warrants.

A not-for-profit cooperative doesn’t allow or have outside investors to buy stock to raise the capital it needs to fund operations. As a result, capital credits become a partial self financing system used by most cooperatives to help build equity and defray interest expense.

“What other businesses call profits, we call margins and these margins are assigned to each member based on the dollar amount of business they did with the co-op during the year,” said Mark Pendergast, president and CEO. “St. Croix Electric has returned more than $11 million to it members in capital credits since the first payments were made starting in 1953.

Prize winners of Green Bay Packer gear or electric bill credits were Steve Meyer, Woodville; Barbara Zimmerman, Baldwin; Larry Weisenbeck, New Richmond; Arnold Roen, River Falls; and Rory Gilbert, Baldwin.

Open house attendees were asked to register online at the event in support of the Our Energy Our Future campaign www.ourenergy.coop/ asking Congress to ensure any cap and trade legislation is fair, achievable and affordable. Members in director districts 3, 6 and 9 were encouraged to volunteer to serve as members of the 2011 nominating committee.

A hybrid utility lift truck was also on display for members to see. The hybrid truck sports a $100,000 price increase over a conventional diesel-only fuel truck. The hybrid uses a 50-battery pack of conventional style car batteries as the second power source for the aerial lift.

Fully charged, the batteries can maneuver the lift functions of the truck for up to two hours. The diesel engine will recharge the batteries during the driving mode or the engine will start while the vehicle is stopped to charge the batteries. Six of the hybrid trucks have been sold to Wisconsin utilities in 2010.

St. Croix Electric Cooperative is a Touchstone Energy Cooperative. It provides electric service for more than 10,000 members located throughout St. Croix and portions of Pierce and Polk counties.

Tags: business, hammond, industry