NHEC Electric Coop - Elections 2016
 

Do others take these elections seriously?

Election ballot.
Choose 4 out of the 5 running.
It states all were nominated by the Nominating Committee.
Anyone know what the Nominating Committee is?

The nominating committee is the committee responsible for nominating. Are you really a professor?


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Yes

Nope

Yes, I read the statements made by each candidate and voted for those I thought would be the most fiscally conservative.

As far as the nominating committee, generally a non profit organization's nominating committee is appointed by the Board of Directors and puts forth names they believe would be good candidates for available board positions.

That's common practice in many, if not most, companies that have a board of directors. Usually shareholders ("members" in the case of NHEC) can nominate additional candidates by petition. The shareholders/members then vote among the overall list of candidates to fill the specified number of openings.

I do the same thing, the ones who start spouting about GW or massive green energy investment don't get my vote.

Why do you assume the people being nominated for the open board positions are members of the nominating committee? Do you have any evidence of that?

Not with this group but back in my days at Digital Equipment, we did get a few candidates on the ballot who were not nominated by the committee for the DCU Board of Directors. A couple were elected to the board. It's doable but it takes a concerted effort.

Professor, the answer is in the bylaws, the relevant section follows:
Section 3. Nominations. It shall be the duty of the Board of Directors to appoint, not less than one hundred twenty (120) days nor more than one hundred eighty (180) days before the date of the meeting of members at which the results of the election of directors is to be declared, a Nominating Committee of not fewer than five (5) nor more than eleven (11) members who shall be selected so as to give equitable representation on the committee to the membership of the Cooperative. No officer or member of the Board of Directors shall be appointed a member of such committee. With logistical support provided by the Cooperative, it shall be the duty of the Nominating Committee to independently make all decisions concerning nominations for directors. In the fulfillment of its duty the committee shall use its collective best judgment concerning the qualifications of potential candidates, the current and projected needs, challenges and opportunities facing the Cooperative, the overall best interests of the Cooperative, and the effective and equitable representation of the membership. In addition to any other criteria which the committee, in its discretion, may consider, it shall consider the geographic location of potential candidates’ electric service accounts. The committee shall not nominate potential candidates who do not meet the qualifications and tenure requirements in Section 2 of this Article.

The bylaws are publicly available.


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The co-op is owned but its members which are its customers, the electric rate payers. The one piece of information that I'd love to have is the compensation of directors and key managers. Unfortunately, they keep this closely guarded. My guess is that a lot of money goes out the door to the management team. Given this lack of transparency, I wrote in Donald Trump on my ballot.

Secondcurve, here is a link to their Form 990 which lists the compensation of all employees making over $100k and all board members. Nonprofits are required to file a form 990 each year. http://www.nhec.com/pdf/2015_Form_990.pdf


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Joebon: Thank you very much. The information is extremely helpful. I'm unsure why it isn't more prominently displayed in financial reports sent to members. While I have some questions, overall compensation seems reasonable in relationship to the size of the business they are running. That being said, i still wonder if rate payers would be better off having the co-op folded into a larger power company that could deliver power in a more efficient manner. Thanks again.

Agree 100 % , the compensation seems in line . The issue is these services run much more efficiently at size and folding this into a larger utility would reduce duplication and cut costs .