Board Meeting Minutes, April 2021
5/6/2021
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
RE: FLEC’s April Board Meeting
Contact: Jarrod Brackett, jarrod.brackett@flec.org
The Fort Loudoun Electric Cooperative (FLEC) Board of Directors convened for their regular monthly meeting last Thursday, April 22nd at 6 p.m. The meeting was closed to the public with Covid-19 restrictions still in place. John Loope, FLEC’s Board President, moved quickly to ask for approval of the previous meeting minutes and the agenda for the evening; all were in favor and motions and seconds were met favorably. The governing body approved the CEO to move 333 new members to the membership rolls. After a quick approval by all, the Cooperative officially had 33,906 total members, up by 240 members for the year. All noted that, “we are approaching a membership of 34,000. Our Cooperative continues to grow.” Mike Webb, FLEC’s Assistant General Manager/CFO noted that, “the membership has grown by 656 members since March of 2020.”
The board committee report of a recent Annual Meeting Committee was provided by Jarrod Brackett, FLEC’s General Manager/CEO. The Committee had met on April 12th and discussed the success of the first-ever 2020 annual drive-thru meeting first. Shirley Hall, Director for District 4, had presided over the meeting and voiced several public concerns with the pandemic that still lingered in the way of returning to in-person meeting as in years past. The board moved to approve a plan presented for consideration by the Committee that involved holding another drive-thru annual meeting on October 2, 2021, at the FLEC warehouse location. “It was a success,” Denny Stephens, Director for District 9, voiced and Lewis Jones, Director for District 7 followed with… “so why not do it again!” With all in favor, the plan as presented for consideration was approved. Brackett explained, “So, on October 2nd, from 7 a.m. until 10 a.m., the Cooperative will open the operations center’s gates to the public and folks will be able to drive through the warehousing area as they did last year. They will be asked to stop and register (receiving a $20 credit on their November electric invoicing and getting their name entered in the door prize drawings that will be held the following Monday via Facebook live). They will be able to see information on their Cooperative and some of the heavy equipment utilized to keep the electricity flowing as they drive to another stop and receive a give-a-way bag and get a chance to register for four (4) $500 scholarships, if qualified, that will be awarded at the 9:30 a.m. business session. The business session will be recorded and later posted to a link on the FLEC website (www.flec.org) for all interested members to review. With no bylaw changes proposed this year, the Cooperative will only have to address business presented throughout the year that will be in a summary report that we will include in the give-a-way bags. All attending will be asked to stay in their vehicles and each person in the vehicle will receive a $5 gift card to a local restaurant at the last stop close to their exit of the property. Last year, it took less than 15 minutes for folks to drive-thru and this format was really appreciated by our membership. They get to interact, learn about their Cooperative, and who knows… they may even win something (a scholarship or door prize). We really hope folks will be able to come through and celebrate with us.”
Mike Webb presented on the FLEC financials as usual. The financial report for the month of March was positive, “largely due to some colder weather patches,” Webb noted. Webb noted that the work in progress had fallen substantially with the completion of the substation in Blount County last fall…now down to a little over $2.9 million. He said, “We are encouraged by the growth the Cooperative had experienced over the last year, in spite of the pandemic.” “The numbers discussed reflect a seventeen percent (17%) reduction in usage, in comparison to the previous month; but, the overall revenue for the year is still positive,” Webb noted. Sheila Montooth, FLEC’s Accounting Manager, included graphs on the financials and a report on the accounts proposed to be moved to bad debt for the month of March. Her report showed that the Cooperative had a need to move 20 accounts totaling $3,823 to bad debt. Stephens and Mike Wiggins, the District 6 Director and Board Vice President, quickly made motions and seconds on this matter and off the debt went to collections after a formal approval by all present.
Lisa Lingerfelt, FLEC’s V.P. of Administrative Services and Human Resources, and the CEO gave updates on recent activities of the Cooperative. “With some attrition, the Cooperative will be looking to hire some entry level personnel,” Lingerfelt reported. “The Cooperative has some folks that have retired and have filled some of these positions from within. This has left us some vacancies that we hope to interview for in May at entry level positions,” Lingerfelt explained further. Brackett advised that all of the U.S. Representatives and Senators serving FLEC’s service area (or their staff members) had met with Tennessee cooperative leadership over the past week. The meetings were held virtually and allowed all to share. Areas of concern discussed included: support for continued broadband expansion initiatives, proposed federal legislation that would keep interest rates regarding cooperative loans low, and general discussion about how focus should be given toward keeping electric costs affordable and reliability stable (conservatively approaching new technologies and renewables). “We voiced that we don’t want to become like California or Texas, when it comes to our (TVA’s) generation base load mix and rate structures,” Brackett shared. “We have residential rates that cost a dime a kilowatt hour (kWh) and we have no need to increase our rates; others are not so fortunate,” Brackett concluded. The CEO reported on TVA’s new Electric Vehicle (EV) commercial charging rate and recommended that it be attained for future use when electric vehicles become more popular and there is a need for this special rate; the board voted in approval of the CEO working with TVA to get a rate in place as soon as possible. A request was also made by the CEO for approval to extend the contract with Chris Mitchell Consulting for another year; this too met approval of the board. The CEO asked for an executive session to discuss some contractual and personnel matters in more detail. With this request, the regular meeting of the FLEC Board of Directors/Trustees meeting for April came to an end at approximately 8:15 p.m. as a motion to adjourn and reconvene in an executive session were met with all “ayes”.
The next meeting was announced for May 27th at the corporate headquarters board room at 6 p.m. with continued hopes of the pandemic passing and group meetings returning to an “open to the public” status. For additional information about FLEC, visit our website: www.flec.org or follow FLEC’s Facebook and Twitter accounts.