SDCEA Board Meeting Notes
12/28/22
Public Comment
Sue Greiner gave the board the dates for the upcoming AVEF community engagement meetings again.
New board member Michael Robinson was seated.
Franchise Agreement update:
The term of the agreement is still being discussed. Paul wants a 25-30 year agreement so that SDCEA can make long term investments.
The town apparently wants a much shorter term so they can react to the quickly changing energy market. Paul noted that the ball is in SDCEA’s court on the agreement. Attorney Martin inquired as to the timeframe to respond to the Town. The board will go into executive session to talk about the specifics of the agreement, including the term, which Paul stated was his “low water mark.”
4-year work plan:
Talked about a line of credit with the U.S. Rural Utility Service of about $26,841,000 to finance the work plan. Resolution to borrow funds approved by the board.
NRTC Agreement for Smart Grid Network – High-Level Backbone Design:
Communications plan presented by Sarah McMahon. Need better fiber communication ability if they want to go to Time of Use billing. This has been worked on piecemeal for some time by SDCEA, but no solid plan has been developed for building it out. A high-level design is needed and NRTC can provide that. Potential partners on fiber optic work are CCT and Chaffee County. Asked board to approve the agreement with NRTC. It was approved. Paul commented that this work has been a long time coming.
Rate schedule #6 Net Metering discussion:
Using Tri-State’s avoided cost of energy numbers, the yearly true-up amount will drop from $.02384 to $.01632 per kWh. Paul and Sarah McMahon said this is because renewables are getting cheaper. Paul says this policy is up to the board. Blake said the board should discuss raising the true-up amount. Dan said if they raise the true-up they will subsidize net metering even more than they already do. Nick took exception with the idea that net metering is subsidized and asked for the data to support that. No action to provide concrete information to the board was promised or forthcoming. Dan put a motion forward to pass the reduced true-up amount. It was approved 6 to 1, with Nick voting against it.
Bylaw revisions regarding Notice of Annual Meeting, carried over from last month:
Change from two mailings to one mailing to give notice of elections and the ballot. This allows more time for people to vote without increasing the costs of the election.
Confidentiality rule: board members and staff must not share personal information.
Bylaw changes were approved.
Charitable giving budget variance: funds not spent ($5592) were voted to be returned to the general fund.
Operation Roundup and Community Grants: Increasing budget for community grants approved. Unspent community grant funds ($2100) for 2022 will be applied to increased administration costs by Chaffee County Community Foundation in 2023.
Director Roundtable:
Sandra was approached by a member asking if a reminder to register for board meetings could be included in bills and/or on website. Paul says including in bills is too expensive. Not clear if it is on website or not. Blake said he completed director accreditation classes and that he appreciates respectful board meetings at SDCEA. He says there are fights in other boards. No one else had anything to report.
CREA report: No notes
Tri-State report:
Charlie Abel is very hard to hear during the virtual board meeting. Apparently, FERC denied Tri-State’s methodology for United Power’s buyout. Charlie seemed to not know what that means. [Note from AVEF Chair Tom Plant: The FERC denial of the Tri-State methodology refers to the buyout amount that United will have to pay to leave Tri-State. Tri-State proposed a methodology that came up with a $1.6B buyout amount. United argued a fair amount would be $158M. The Administrative Law Judge working for FERC denied the Tri-State methodology in its recommendation to FERC, but it is unclear if the FERC decided to go with United’s number or will come up with a different methodology and arrive at a different buyout price. There are a number of issues in the United v Tri-State FERC proceeding that will be determined by FERC in the coming year, many which will have an impact on decisions that may be made by SDCEA]
Sarah McMahon reminded board members that if they want to run for election next spring they have to declare by December 31. [Note: The date for new candidates (not incumbents) to submit their nominating petitions is April 7, 2023.]
Sarah McMahon asked directors to note that Meeting Summaries are being posted on the SDCEA website, but that they are not legal documents and are not the same as the final minutes. Paul commented that when he arrived to SDCEA the minutes were transcript style. He felt that they could “get in trouble” with a transcript, but the resulting minutes since then have not been complete. The summaries that are now posted are a compromise. There also is more information for members on the SDCEA website that is not behind a password anymore, which reflects the request from members for more transparency.
Finance report:
Revenues are 0.6% under budget, while expenses are about 1.5% over budget. Revenues were helped by the cold November. Comment was made by Sarah Crites that this points to how dependent the current rate structure is on weather. Much of this discussion was hard to hear; the meeting sound is often quite choppy and difficult to understand.
Long discussion of Revenue Deferral:
Board members needed some education about how deferral works. Again, difficult to follow because of sound quality, but Paul made reference to how deferral of revenue goes into rate structure. He reminded the board that a healthy cooperative is 67/33 power sales to operating costs. SDCEA is closer to 50/50, which Paul noted as being “unhealthy.” Because of that, when there is a 2% decrease in wholesale power costs, SDCEA doesn’t get the full benefit of it.
Staff anniversaries
Chief Operations Officer:
Lots of projects in the works, including discussion with the Town of BV on the Carbonate Street housing project and with South Main developer on various potential projects. A long-range (2022-2045) construction plan has been developed to determine system adequacy and needs over the years. Work for this 20+ year period has been outlined, and a budget of $88,800,000 is projected if all work was to be completed. There were no specific discussions of new technologies, additional self-generation by the co-op, or migrating to more sustainable practices as part of these future projects.
New service applications year-to-date are 490, including Chateau Chaparral.
There are now 607 net metering accounts, and 62 applications for net metering were in the queue for review in December.
Upcoming Board Meetings: Several dates were changed to accommodate board members’ participation in training and conferences. The February board meeting will be held on TUESDAY, February 28. The March board meeting will be held one week later than usual on Wednesday, March 29.
Executive Session: The Board moved into Executive Session for the expressed purpose of discussing personnel and contracts, that being the Town of Buena Vista Franchise Agreement. SDCEA disconnected virtual attendees from WebEx and by 3:21 p.m. they had still not resumed or let anyone back into the meeting.) Therefore, any specific actions taken by the board during or after the Executive Session are unknown.