During the November 2024 board meeting the Board of Directors of the Franklin County Rural Electric Cooperative voted to adjust the rates effective February 1st.
Franklin REC Chief Executive Officer Garrett Thompson tells RadioOnTheGo News that it has been nearly 5 years since rates were adjusted like this.
“We don’t want to raise rates, we don’t have to. Try to put it off as long as we can. The board knows that these economic times are pretty tough. So that’s why the board decided to do, you know, the study that we performed showed we needed a little over 5% increase. So the board actually decided to step that in over two separate years. That way we weren’t hitting people with one big lump sum upfront, but we could do a little bit this year and a little bit next year to hopefully maybe ease that burden for those individuals.”
Thompson says funds from the rate increase will be used to help with their day-to-day operations.
“No secret to anybody else, the insurance industry is skyrocketing. We have to carry certain insurance policies, get funding from the USDA, so we’re required to carry that, that’s a big part of it. And yeah, we do have some projects coming up, but it’s nothing out of the ordinary, what we normally do year in and year out as far as line improvement plans.”
Franklin REC has customers in several counties in the local area including Butler, Cerro Gordo, Franklin, Hardin and Wright.
