PAHRUMP, Nevada – Valley Electric Association, Inc. (VEA) is pleased to announce it has begun distributing payments from the retirement of $1.5 million in patronage capital that the cooperative’s Board of Directors approved during its November 2014 meeting.
VEA began mailing the checks Friday, Jan. 23. All past members and current members with a retirement of more than $10 will receive checks.
Current members with a retirement of $10 or less will receive power bill credits. Members who receive credits will begin seeing them on bills sent out after Jan. 20.
In all, some 20,807 payments will be made, 17,655 in the form of checks and 3,152 in the form of credits to members’ bills.
The VEA Board of Directors voted to apply $750,000 toward the oldest remaining patronage (1991) and $750,000 toward the most recent patronage (2011 to 2013).
The decision to retire patronage capital was based on the tremendous year that the cooperative had. Due to the 40 percent increase in revenues from new business and a 28 percent reduction in the cooperative’s single largest expense (power supply), VEA concluded the year in a strong financial position.
With this retirement, VEA has retired a total of $19.1 million in patronage capital.
About Valley Electric Association, Inc.
Valley Electric Association, Inc. (VEA) is a member-owned nonprofit electric utility headquartered in Pahrump, Nev. While VEA started as a small rural electric utility in 1965, the company now provides service to more than 45,000 people within a vast 6,800-square-mile service area located primarily along the California-Nevada border, with the majority in Nevada. VEA’s service area starts in Sandy Valley, southwest of Las Vegas, and extends north for more than 250 miles to Fish Lake Valley. For more information about VEA, please visit www.vea.coop.