These may seem like three simple words, but they exemplify the foundation from which your cooperative was formed. A group of people joined together with a purpose and created an organization that has safely provided economical, reliable electric power for more than 86 years. These same three words will continue to guide us into the future as your cooperative evolves to meet the needs of its diverse, growing membership.
People are the driving force behind the accomplishments of your cooperative. Both our employees and our members play vital roles in the development of programs and services to benefit our community and membership. Information gathered through open dialogue among our internal team, as well as input from our members, helps us evaluate all aspects of our business to make necessary adjustments to account for emerging trends.
People.
Working together, we share a common purpose for the future of your cooperative and the power to energize our community for generations to come.
Dixie Electric Cooperative BOARD OF TRUSTEES
THOMAS ELLIS
DISTRICT 1, SEAT 1
TOM JAMES CHAIRMAN
DISTRICT 1, SEAT 2
HELENA DUNCAN
SECRETARY/TREASURER
DISTRICT 2, SEAT 4
VACANT ( AT YEAR END)
DISTRICT 2, SEAT 5
ANDREW CALLAWAY
DISTRICT 3, SEAT 7
JAMES SIKES
DISTRICT 1, SEAT 3
JOHN LIVINGS
DISTRICT 2, SEAT 6
ALBERT PERRY
DISTRICT 3, SEAT 8
JIMMY ELLIS VICE CHAIRMAN
DISTRICT 3, SEAT 9
OUR MISSION
Dixie Electric Cooperative is committed to safely providing its member-owners with economical and reliable electric power and related services.
OUR
VISION
Dixie Electric Cooperative’s vision is to improve the quality of life in and around the communities we serve.
OUR VALUES
Dixie Electric Cooperative is committed to maintaining the following values: Safety Integrity Member-Owner Oriented Efficiency Accountability Community Commitment
IN LOVING MEMORY OF KIM JACKSON
DISTRICT 2, SEAT 5 2015-2024
GARY HARRISON President/CEO
MIKE BARLOW Chief Financial Officer
ERNIE FAULKNER Vice President, Member Services, Marketing & Economic Development
BRANDON JOHNSON Vice President, Engineering & Operations
BRENT MOFFETT Vice President, External Affairs & Special Projects
KAMIKA REEVES Vice President, Human Resources & Administrative Services
IN 2024 DIXIE:
Sponsored 8 high school juniors on Montgomery Youth Tour
Sponsored 4 high school juniors on Washington D.C. Youth Tour
Awarded 16 high school seniors with scholarships totaling $51,000
Inspired and educated over 2,750 students through career fairs and safety demonstrations
Helped to raise over $74,000, 22,500 pounds of food, and 2,500 toys
Assembled and distributed 285 fruit baskets to senior members of the community
PEOPLE
At year-end 2024, your cooperative was staffed with 94 full-time employees. This was a year of transition as we witnessed the retirement of several long-term employees from various departments. We currently have approximately 40 employees on staff who are already eligible for retirement or will reach that milestone within the next five to seven years. These numbers emphasize the importance of having a strong succession plan in place to ensure continuity of quality service within our business operations. Your cooperative’s board and management team annually review our succession plan to address our future staffing needs. This plan outlines a strategic process for developing and training team members to fill critical positions, ensuring smooth transitions, and minimizing knowledge loss. We also have comprehensive training programs in place to assist with the development of knowledge and progression of skills among our new hires.
Our people are the heartbeat of your cooperative, and regardless of tenure, we all understand the mission, vision and values by which we operate and will always maintain these standards.
PURPOSE
MEMBER SERVICES
Your cooperative currently provides over 22,000 members with electricity to more than 27,000 businesses and homes in eight Alabama counties. As you would imagine, this number of members equates to a significant amount of member interaction throughout the year.
In 2024, your cooperative received a total of 465,671 payments. Of these payments, over 68,000 were processed by our member service representatives. The remainder of the payments were made utilizing one of our many free electronic payment methods or through our lockbox service. Our customer service portal website was our top payment source in 2024, with over 127,000 payments made online.
Our member service representatives also received almost 34,000 phone calls during 2024, which is an average of approximately 2,800 calls per month. The phone calls, coupled with the payments processed in our offices, equate to our representatives having personal interaction with approximately 8,500 members each month, or approximately 39 percent of our membership. In addition, our representatives assist with billing, new service requests, prepaid service, service disconnects, and many other member-related services.
MEMBER SATISFACTION
In 2024, your cooperative participated in a member satisfaction and attitude survey to measure how effective we are in meeting your needs. Once the survey results were compiled, they were benchmarked against those of top companies in America utilizing several nationally recognized consumer satisfaction indices. Your cooperative scored in the 90s on key performance factors such
as providing reliable electric service, restoring service quickly after an outage, having knowledgeable and competent employees, having friendly and courteous employees, making it easy to do business, and communicating effectively. Other areas we received high marks on include supporting renewable energy and commitment to local communities.
While we are extremely proud of our recent survey results, our team is always striving to exceed our members’ expectations when it comes to service excellence.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Your cooperative understands the importance of attracting new business and industry to provide economic support and offer employment opportunities in our communities. We work hand-in-hand with local chambers of commerce and economic development organizations to attract new companies to the area while offering support to existing commercial and industrial businesses.
ENERGY EFFICIENCY
Unlike investor-owned utilities, the cooperative business model is not designed to maximize profits for shareholders. Instead, our purpose is to provide a needed service to our community on a cost-of-service basis, returning any surplus to our members in the form of capital credits when the board of trustees determine there are sufficient funds available to allow us to retire capital credits from previous years in the form of cash payments to our members.
Members are often surprised to learn that we have a full-time energy auditor on staff to assist with high energy use and energy efficiency concerns. It isn’t often that a business encourages clients to use less of their product or service, but that is exactly what we do. Our energy auditor performs onsite inspections of businesses and homes to offer recommendations for improvements or repairs to increase the energy efficiency of the structure. She also provides members with hourly usage data, points them to sources on our customer service portal to view daily usage data and guides them through any applicable loan or rebate programs that would offer financial resources for energy efficiency repairs and upgrades.
In 2024, we performed 148 energy audits, completed 27 energy efficiency rebates, and provided 226 electric water heater replacements to members.
Electric vehicles continue to increase in prevalence in our service territory. Through our partnership with PowerSouth Energy Cooperative, we provided 40 electric vehicle rebates in 2024. We currently have 120 members taking advantage of our electric vehicle rate and three additional members utilizing our time of use rate. By incentivizing members to charge electric vehicles and perform other high-energy use tasks during off-peak hours, all members are benefiting from our reduction in overall demand on our system during peak times, which, in turn, lowers our wholesale power costs.
POWER
We understand that our members expect a reliable source of electricity. In 2024, our overall system reliability for the year was 99.94 percent.
Each year, your cooperative works with PowerSouth Energy Cooperative, our power supplier, to develop load forecasts to ensure we have an adequate power supply to meet the growing electric demands on our system. Your cooperative has consistently remained one of the top five cooperatives among PowerSouth’s member systems regarding projected load growth.
Our engineering staff also works to develop long-range and four-year work plans. The information contained in these plans helps staff determine where growth will take place, as well as the equipment and energy requirements necessary to meet the needs in those areas. Crews also inspect poles and equipment throughout the year to help maintain the integrity of the electric system.
Your cooperative also has an extensive vegetation management program in place that includes the use of heavy-duty clearing and trimming equipment to remove large trees and growth followed by a spray that promotes the growth of green plants while eliminating wood stems and thick undergrowth. This process not only improves system reliability but also improves the aesthetics of our rights of way.
2024 FACTS & FIGURES
BALANCE SHEET
NOTICE:
The financial information provided is part of the financial statements for the yearended December 31, 2024, which contained an unmodified auditor’s opinion. A copy of the financial statements is retained at the Cooperative’s office.
DISTRIBUTION OF EXPENSE DOLLAR By Percentage
This graph provides a breakdown of our expenses by category and percentage. As you can see, the greatest expense incurred by your cooperative is purchased power. Power cost accounts for 62 percent of our expenses.
STATEMENT OF OPERATIONS
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY-TREASURER
The board of trustees of Dixie Electric Cooperative has examined the balance sheet and financial statements for Dixie Electric Cooperative for the fiscal year-ending December 31, 2024. All subsidiary records and accounting procedures of the cooperative are kept in accordance with the Uniform System of Accounts as prescribed by the Rural Utilities Service. Your board of trustees reviews monthly statements. In turn, an independent audit has been performed by Gruenloh, Matz and Associates, P.C., Certified Public Accountants, on all cooperative financial records on a fiscal year basis as of December 31 for the preceding 12 months. Additional reviews are made periodically by the Rural Utilities Service for assuring compliance with required accounting procedures and mortgage requirements.
Helena Duncan Secretary-Treasurer
FINANCIAL REPORT
Cost of Purchased Power 50,266,117
Operations & Maintenance Expense 10,027,255
Consumer Accounts & Sales Expense 4,645,455
Administrative & General 5,008,456
Depreciation 4,992,326 Tax Expense 3,429,103
Interest Expense 2,472,999
Total Cost of Electric Service 80,841,711
Operating Margins 5,344,228 Non Operating Margins 671,775 Generation & Transmission Capital Credits 813,299 Other Capital Credits 583,642
Patronage Capital $ 7,412,944
NOTICE: The financial information provided is part of the financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2024, which contained an unmodified auditor’s opinion. A copy of the financial statements is retained at the Cooperative’s office.
Monies invested in system improvements and routine construction during the past year resulted in an increase in net utility plant of 6.2 percent. Kilowatt-hour sales increased 6.5 percent from 2023, while annual growth in consumers was slightly higher in 2024, increasing by 1.6 percent. The increase in kilowatt-hour sales can be attributed to changes in weather patterns as well as load growth in commercial/industrial accounts.
Purchased power, or wholesale power, is the single largest component of our rate. This expense comprises the cost of generating the electricity we provide to our member-owners (including generating fuel, capital expenses associated with constructing and operating power plants, and transmission costs to deliver energy from the power plants to our lines).
Power cost per kilowatt-hour sold increased 1.5 percent in 2024, with wholesale power accounting for 62 percent of our total cost of service – an uncontrollable yet essential expense.
Total revenue for 2024 was $86,185,939. Operating margins were $5,344,228, or 6.2 percent of total revenue.
