CMEEC annual meeting approves budget, officers
Norwich — The governing board of the Connecticut Municipal Electric Energy Cooperative elected officers and approved a $7.3 million 2018 nonfuel operating budget at Thursday’s annual meeting.
The utility cooperative, however, did not immediately release budget details.
CMEEC General Counsel Robin Kipnis said following the meeting that the draft budget documents reviewed at the meeting contained confidential proprietary utility information not subject to public disclosure and she would provide budget summaries today.
In response to one question by Norwich board member Grace Jones, CMEEC Chief Financial Officer Edward Pryor said salary increases will be 3.2 percent, based on a competitive market study. No other details of the budget were discussed.
The cooperative is owned by six member municipally owned utilities in the state, and representatives from those utilities serve on the board of directors.
In the wake of a controversy that erupted a year ago over the cooperative’s hosting of lavish trips to the Kentucky Derby for four years, a new state law added municipal ratepayer representatives to the CMEEC board to be appointed directly by the member’s chief elected agency — city or town councils or boards of selectmen. The new law took effect Oct. 1, but no new ratepayer members attended Thursday’s annual meeting, and the selection process is not yet completed in some member towns.
Groton City, which owns CMEEC member Groton Utilities, appointed recently retired Groton Town Manager Mark Oefinger as its ratepayer representative. Groton City Mayor Keith Hedrick, who serves on the CMEEC board as chairman of the Groton Utilities Commission, said Oefinger will become active shortly and will attend, along with other new board members, an orientation program dubbed “CMEEC 101” to be run by cooperative CEO Drew Rankin.
The CMEEC board meets monthly, normally rotating meetings among member utilities’ host towns and the CMEEC headquarters at 30 Stott Ave. in the Norwich business park. But Rankin said Norwich meetings for the next year, including Thursday’s annual meeting, will be held at the Spa at Norwich Inn because of renovations taking place at its headquarters. Rankin said, however, that the regular board room will be too small to accommodate the enlarged board in the future.
The CMEEC board re-elected Kenneth Sullivan, director of the Jewett City Department of Utilities as chairman and named Ronald Gaudet, director of Groton Utilities, as vice chairman. Norwich Public Utilities General Manager John Bilda had been vice chairman. Bilda was named as chairman of the board’s Risk Management Committee.
Board secretary will be Jewett City utilities commission member Louis Demicco, and Kevin Barber, general manager of the Third Taxing District of Norwalk, was named treasurer.
Although no budget details were discussed, Rankin and other CMEEC officials reviewed the cooperative’s financial and electric rate performance thus far in 2017 as compared to budget projections and to Eversource, the largest investor-owned utility in the region.
Rankin said overall, CMEEC’s wholesale power costs have been 24 percent lower than Eversource’s wholesale cost, and CMEEC is projected to end the year about 30 percent lower than the privately held utility. The deviation is expected to widen, possibly to 35 percent, cooperative officials said, when Eversource’s upcoming rate hike takes effect.