Karnes Electric Cooperative, Inc. returns $400K




The Karnes Electric’s board of directors authorized the return of $415,352 in capital credits to the cooperative’s members. Any member of Karnes Electric currently having an active account received their capital credit refund in the form of a credit on their October 2013 bill. Any member no longer receiving service from Karnes Electric had a check mailed to them.

You’ve probably heard of profit sharing for people who work for employeeminded companies. But did you know that a rural electric cooperative that sells electricity hands its profits back to its consumers?

Rural electric cooperatives are nonprofit businesses. They charge a fair rate for electricity, and use the money to make sure there’s enough power to go around. They use it to maintain their equipment, pay their staff, and run the business. Anything that’s left over is returned to their customers.

Cooperative employees don’t even refer to that money as “profit”, because they know the utility isn’t going to keep it. There are no stockholders to pay because cooperatives are owned by the people who buy their services, not by investors. So cooperative employees call the money left over after all expenses are paid “margins”. And they call the refunds they send to their consumers “capital credits” or “patronage dividends”.

Getting a capital credit refund is a bonus that consumers get for buying their electricity from a cooperative. Another bonus is that those consumers are actually members – and partowner – of the cooperative rather than just customers. So capital credits are a benefit of membership.

Including the amount authorized for return this year, the capital credits returned total $5,111,470. Karnes Electric Cooperative, Inc. is proud of its 72-year heritage of providing electric distribution power in 12 South Texas and Coastal Bend counties. We are headquartered in Karnes City, Texas; with a district office in Pleasanton, Texas.



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