March 31, 2026 Board Meeting

March 31, 2026, Board Meeting Summary

Rate restructure: Staff presented their recommendation on a new rate structure for the residential and general service rate classes, a proposal outline here: Education Hub – Sangre de Cristo Electric Association, Inc. At their next board meeting April 22, SDCEA board will review the proposal and consider action.

Town Halls: SDCEA will sponsor two town halls to encourage member engagement, a virtual town hall from 2-3 p.m. April 14; and a second town hall from 5:30- 7 p.m. April 15 in the community room, Buena Vista. Details may be found here: Virtual & In-Person Town Halls – Sangre de Cristo Electric Association, Inc.

Custer County Emergency Response: A 35–40-foot Aspen tree blew into a single-phase power line March 18, which triggered a 65-acre wildfire in Custer County. Fire authorities were able to fully contain the fire the next day. Beyer praised firefighters for their quick and thorough response to the fire.

In this case, the line tried to re-energize when it went down and ignited the tree, which in turn ignited grass in a field and spread to some ponderosa trees nearby. SDCEA has now moved to enhanced system sensitivity (one-shot) due to the danger of wildfire across the service territory. Lines are set to de-energize quickly if a tree or debris contacts a line, minimizing ignition risk.

This may increase the likelihood of outages and create longer restoration times due to mandatory visual inspections of lines and equipment to ensure safety during the duration of fire season.

 Substation battery: SDCEA continues to investigate the feasibility of entering into a power purchase agreement to build a utility battery at the Buena Vista Substation. The battery could be used to discharge and shave overall system demand, reducing charges in wholesale power during peak demand times, as well as potentially helping with system backup during an outage or maintenance.

Bring your own Resource – SDCEA is in talks with a coalition of cooperatives to develop new renewable energy project to contribute to our power supply under provisions in our wholesale power supplier’s contract.

Capital Credits – The board approved to allocate $219,504.46 of Tri-State’s patronage to SDCEA to members in capital credits for the year 2025. Due to SDCEA having negative operating margins at 2025 year-end, the board approved no allocation of SDCEA patronage to the membership.

The board approved the allocation of $675,710.98 of non-operating margins to the cooperative’s permanent equity funds. Building the cooperative’s permanent equity fund allows the co-op to maintain a healthy financial position and helps keep the cooperative’s rates as low as is possible. Permanent equity refers to the funds a company keeps on hand to complete the construction work plan, finance long-term investments, mitigate risk, provide rate and financial stability and demonstrate creditworthiness.

Equity & Financial Management –  SDCEA’s CFO presented updates to Board Policy A-20 to provide guidelines and clear direction from the board to management, provide long-term vision and strategic goals, avoid short-term enticements to create a financial plan that is reasonable to current and former members, comply with debt covenants and maintain a sound financial position, creating sufficient equity and capital to operate. Staff will request approval of the policy at the April board meeting.

Operations Report: Of seven unplanned outages in February, three were caused by material or equipment failure. One was caused by a tree falling on a line, one was caused by a member, one from corrosion/abrasion of equipment and one from decay/age of material/equipment.

Vegetation Management – 184 trees were removed from SDCEA’s system in February, 58 trees were trimmed and three hazard trees removed for a total of 2.32 miles cleared.

Financial report: Another warm month contributed to a decline in energy sales at the cooperative. Not only has it been warmer year over year, but February 2026 was warmer than the 22-year average.

Year-to-date (February 2026):

Revenues are 6.4 percent below budget.

Total year-to-date expenses are 7.2 percent below budget.

Special Recognition: Director Blake Bennetts was recognized for having earned his Board Leadership Program Certification from the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association after the successful completion of a series of in-depth courses that address critical topics in the electric cooperative industry.

Executive session: An Executive Session was held to discuss items to be held in confidence. The regular meeting was reconvened and was adjourned. No action was taken.

Next board meetings:  April 22 and May 27, SDCEA board room, Buena Vista.

Agendas are posted 10 days in advance on SDCEA’s website: Board Meeting Agendas & Minutes – Board Meeting Agendas & Minutes – Sangre de Cristo Electric Association, Inc.