A Message From the Manager

2025 Brings New Challenges

Dear Valued Members,

I hope this letter finds you well as we are off and running into 2025. First, I want to thank you all for the opportunity to serve you as Raft River Rural Electric Cooperative members. As with any business, there are always plenty of challenges to keep us on our toes. We live in an ever-evolving world filled with challenges, successes and, of course, disappointments.

As you are all well aware, the headwinds of inflation have been relentless in the past few years, brought on by various causes. The escalated costs of virtually everything we use to keep the electrons flowing have left us with no alternative choice but to adjust our rates. This adjustment is necessary to ensure we can continue making power purchases to adequately meet the demands of the loads placed on our system, while also investing in and maintaining our aging infrastructure to provide the reliability you expect and deserve.

Starting April 1, a total average revenue rate increase of 9% will be applied to all members. Each rate class will be affected differently, and some members within the same rate class may see different levels of increase based on their energy use patterns. It’s important to emphasize the estimated 9% represents the overall average increase. Again, this is the average rate increase, meaning individual bills will vary—some could be higher, while others might be lower—depending on the class of service and use levels.

This year, Raft River Electric will retire more than $1.5 million in capital credits to members who received electric service in 1996. I am sure some of you may ask why we are paying out patronage but adjusting rates. That’s a great question that is always up for debate.

A portion of the margins collected in 1996 was used to fund capital improvements for the future and to pay off previous margins (similar to a loan from previous ratepayers).

Most of your dollar today goes toward buying wholesale power, the power members consume. The remainder of that dollar is spent maintaining the current system, which includes a portion to fund future investments in the system and to repay those funds used to make improvements and upgrades to the system back in 1996. Some of that funding is loans accumulating interest, and some are margins collected through rates back in 1996.

The idea behind the cooperative model is to equalize costs, as we don’t want members of the past bearing disproportional amounts of funding in the future. If you are a current member, you should not have to bear more than your share of the cost burden to fund the system into the future. If you participated in financing the future back in 1996, you are getting a portion of those funds back through this year’s capital credit payment. There must be a balance, and finding that balance is what the board continually strives to accomplish.

Living in an evolving world, new technologies and changing demographics instigate the need to be fluid or dynamic in our thinking and policy adoption. The board is proactively reviewing Raft River Electric’s policies and bylaws to ensure they remain up to date, attempting to align them with current governance practices. Working with the cooperative’s legal counsel, a change regarding the meeting quorum requirements will be proposed on this year’s ballot. The current bylaws require at least 150 members to be present, in person, or represented by proxy, mail-in balloting or absentee balloting to conduct regularly scheduled business at the annual meeting of the members. In the past few years, an election was held to achieve that quorum. The new proposal would amend quorum requirements by stating the number of voting members present at the regular annual meeting of the members constitutes a quorum. This proposed amendment would eliminate the need to conduct an uncontested election to meet current quorum requirements. The proposed language also specifies at least 75 members must be present to conduct business at special meetings of the members.

I encourage you all to mark your calendars for the 2025 Annual Meeting of the Members at 7 p.m., Tuesday, April 8, at Raft River High School in Malta. Registration and in-person voting begins at 6 p.m. Look for your mail-in ballot, which will be sent out after March 1.

This year’s capital credit checks also are mailed in early March, so keep an eye on your mailbox. Do not hesitate to contact us with any questions or concerns.

Thank you for being a valued member of the cooperative.

With respect,
Chad Black
General Manager