RATE ADUSTMENT SEPTEMBER BILLING

Darke Rural Electric Cooperative’s (Darke REC) management and board of trustees have been reviewing and planning for 2010 and beyond. Our main goal, as stated in the cooperative’s mission statement, is, “providing reliable quality service at a competitive price.”

In order to provide reliable quality service, it is necessary to have an aggressive construction work plan. The current four-year work plan is one of our most aggressive at $6.2 million. A major component in this work plan is rebuilding several miles of our older electric lines to help us better provide safe and reliable service.

The Darke REC Board of Trustees voted to remain on a 15-year rotation for paying capital credits. Prior to 2005 the capital credit payment averaged less than $400,000. For the next eight years Darke REC will be paying an average of nearly $1 million to its members. In order to remain on the current schedule for construction and capital credit payments, our financial forecast shows a rate change is necessary. To comply with our goals, Darke REC is adjusting electric service rates for just the third time since 1991.

The rate adjustment will be recovered through residential and commercial service charges as well as consumption rates. The residential service charge will be $19.50/month and the commercial service charge will be $28/month. The remaining 6.4 percent adjustment will be charged through the consumption block rates. The security light monthly fee will be adjusted to $9/month due to an environmental change from mercury vapor to high-pressure sodium bulbs.

Darke REC members have some of the lowest rates in Ohio. In a recent rate comparison study conducted by our power supplier, Buckeye Power, Inc., Darke REC's residential rate is much lower than the statewide average for investor-owned utilities and lower than the average of Ohio’s 24 electric cooperatives. Compared to the statewide averages, for a member using 1,000 kilowatt-hours, Darke’s rate is 28 percent lower than the state’s investor-owned electric utilities and 14 percent lower than Ohio’s electric cooperatives.

As always, your cooperative is committed to our member owner’s best interests and strives to provide reliable quality service at a competitive price.