Finance Report
Sixty years old and we are still growing!
Wow! Sixty years old and we are still growing! And like most, we aren’t growing in the same places as we did when we were younger - but growth for our coop is good!
In the past year, our kilowatt-hour (kWh) sales grew about percent. Mor-Gran-Sou also gained 73 new members, adding 183 new members within our service area. These positive numbers helped our net operating margin to get back to a little over $700,000.
That’s important because we are trying to reverse the downward trend on our member’s equity which is now just a shade above 33 percent. In an environment of rising energy prices and higher construction costs, it is extremely difficult to maintain our equity level as we build lines for our new members and begin to replace some of the poles and equipment that are now 60 years old. I guess we can expect to replace a hip or a knee or have other repairs at 60!
We are growing in other ways, too. The board is continuously looking for ways to hold costs down and position our co-op for the future. We are presently exploring a management alliance with our co-op neighbors to the west and north. This gives us a great opportunity to hold our administrative costs down and look at ways to share services we can’t afford by ourselves. We’ve spent the better part of a year looking at this from every angle and it looks like the best shot we have at trying to insulate Mor-Gran-Sou from some of the increase in power costs we are expecting in 2008 or 2009.
Finally, I want to assure you that every one of the nine board members takes their responsibilities very seriously. If you have questions or concerns about the direction the co-op is headed, please give anyone of the directors a call. We all own our co-op and if we all do our part, we can have another 60 years of growth!
(701) 663-0297 :: (701) 597-3301 :: 1-800-750-8212