CORNERCo-op

Your monthly report from Your Socorro Electric Cooperative, Inc.

October 2018

Ready for takeoff. Members were offered free rides on the Touchstone balloon at the 2018 Pietown Festival. Photo Credits: Jimmy Capps

More Information About the Proposed Rate Change - Last month we informed the Members of the Board of Trustees’ decision to approve a resolution to apply to the NMPRC for a

change in overall revenues of approximately 5.06%. The board received the recommendation from its independent consulting firm who conducted a thorough Cost of Service Study (COSS). We discussed how the COSS reviewed the current rate design that has been in effect since March 2011. We covered how each respective rate classes does not provide adequate revenues to cover the fixed costs to maintain our existing required financial minimums. In our current rate design, a significant portion of our fixed costs and margins are recovered through the energy charge (kWh) portion of your bill. This may result in unintended consequences of higher kWh use members paying a disproportionate share of the fixed costs and it can also mean that when fixed costs rise and /or kWh sales decline, SEC could lose revenue because a portion of our fixed costs go unrecovered.

Most of the proposed new revenue will be recovered from the changes in the monthly Service Charge for all members and all rate classes. This monthly Service Charge is different for each "class" of consumer on our system: Residential, Small Commercial, Irrigation, Large Commercial or Area Lighting. By increasing our System Charge, we can recover our fixed costs in a more stable method and from each member more fairly.

This Service Charge ensures that your expectations for reliable, continuous power and responsive member service are met by the 38 full-time employees of SEC. It gives each member a fair and equal share of the cooperative's monthly operation and maintenance expenses. It provides the necessary funds that must be invested now to maintain the quality, reliability and integrity of service that our members have traditionally counted on and come to expect.

Some of the expense items covered by the Service Charge include: the purchase of, and operating expenses to support, our fleet of 41 trucks, trailers and other heavy equipment that service over 3,300 miles of power line, 47,000 poles and 7,800 transformers that comprise the electric distribution system covering more than 10,000 square miles; the labor and overhead needed to build and maintain the electric distribution system - not only during "regular business hours" but also during outage situations; the interest on our debt; the property taxes on our plant for each of the 7 counties we serve in; billing and administration costs; employee educational and safety training.

This Service Charge also allows for the implementation of new technologies that provide improved reliability and operational efficiencies such as advanced metering infrastructure and sophisticated line equipment that continually monitors the distribution system for outages or voltage fluctuations. Because all SEC members benefit from having reliable electric available when they want it, the Service Charge ensures that everyone pays a fair share of basic costs - costs that exist whether or not a single kilowatt-hour of energy is used. In comparison, this charge for our Residential consumers changed from $6 monthly to $9 in the 2005 rate change; $9 to the current $15 in the 2011 rate change; and is now moving from $15 monthly to $22.75 and the energy is also changing from $0.125/kWh to $0.12519. These changes will be effective January 1, 2019.

To give our Residential members a better idea of the change to each of them, based on their monthly kWh consumption, see the comparison chart on the back page of this sheet.

A comparison of the present rates and proposed rates for SEC Residential Members: Monthly kWh Present Proposed Monthly Usage Rate* Rate Change 0 $ 15.00 $ 27.75 ** $ 7.75 250 $ 47.89 $ 54.05 $ 6.16 500 $ 80.77 $ 85.35 $ 4.57 750 $113.66 $ 116.64 $ 2.99 1,000 $146.54 $ 147.94 $ 1.40 2,000 $278.09 $ 273.13 ($4.96)

September Board of Trustees Meeting Report• The Board approved the Write-Off of uncollected bad debts for 2016 in the

amount of $93,644.99.

• The Board voted to declare the District II Trustee's seat vacant in accordance with SEC By-laws Section 5.09.

• The next Board Meeting will be October 24, 2018 at 2:00 at 310 Abeyta Ave.

WEBSITEwww.socorroelectric.com

PHONE1-800-351-7575 or 575-835-0560

PAYING YOUR BILLYou can make your payment over the

phone by check or major credit card, 24 hrs. a day, 7 days a week with our IVR

phone system at no charge.

OFFICE HOURSMonday through Friday 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

REPORTING AN OUTAGEBefore reporting a power outage, please check the circuit breakers in your house first. If you still do not have power after

checking your breakers, please call (575) 835-0560 or (800) 351-7575.

If you get a busy signal, it is an indication that someone else is experiencing an

outage as well; however please continue to call, this will help us pinpoint

the problem.

MEMBER SERVICE/BILLING Marilyn Madrid - Member Service Supervisor 575-835-0560 Ext 1504

ACCOUNTINGRauni Montoya - Accounting Supervisor 575-835-0560 Ext 2502

LINE EXTENSIONS:Bill Harris - Staking Technician575-835-0560 Ext 2503

MARKETING & PUBLIC AFFAIRSJimmy Capps - Director of Communications & Public Affairs - 575-838-9724jcapps@socorroelectric.com

© Copyright 2018 Socorro Electric Cooperative, Inc.

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Did you know...? the amount of uncollected Bad Debts for unpaid SEC Electric Bills for the years 2009-2016 totaled $1,034,494.78. Any unpaid amounts to SEC add to our expenses and are recovered from the remaining SEC members through current and future rates.

Pay Here& you could win!*We’re giving away a

$250 Cabela's Gift Card!

How To Enter:1. Pay your Socorro Electric bill at the Magdalena PaySite by December 13, 2018.2. That’s it! We will contact you if you win!

A New Way to Pay!SEC is proud to announce our latest addition! The PaySite kiosk is located at the

Village of Magdalena office. Cash and Debit/Credit Cards are accepted. No Checks!Cash payments will be assessed $1.50 convenience fee.

Just one more way we are serving YOU our member/owners!

Village of Magdalena Office Hours are: Monday - Friday: 8:00 - Noon & 1:00 - 5:00 p.m.Drawing will be held December 14, 2018!

$250

*Includes adjustment of $0.006543/kWh due to increased purchased power cost and interest on long term debt above the base costs built into present rates.** Includes additional Minimum Charge of $5.00.