Barron Electric Cooperative

“Organization is a member cooperative.”

“Members nominate one or more candidates for a director position for each district of the cooperative. Members lect the board of directors at the meeting of the members.”

“Each member shall be entitled to one vote upon each matter submitted to a vote at a meeting of the members.”

“The 990 is reviewed by the general manager and finance manager before it is signed and filed. The board of directors is given a copy of the form 990 to review before it was filed.”

“A copy of the conflict of interest policy was given to each current employee and director as well as each new employee and director the conflict of interest policy is a self-policing policy in which it is the responsibility of each employee/director to come forward with any potential conflicts whenever they occur the whistleblower policy supports the enforcement of the conflict of interest policy by encouraging all employees and directors to report conflicts of interest and other questionable behavior.”

“The board of directors uses comparability data provided by nreca to determine the compensation of the general manager. The board of directors determines the general manger's compensation and reports it to the executive secretary via minutes from the board director confidential closed session. The general manager approves the compensation of all other employees. The general manager uses both comparability data provided by nreca and data from the most current wage study performed at barron electric by an outside independent consultant, to determine compensation. Individual compensation is determined by the general manager. Compensation as a whole is approved by the board of directors. Individual compensation is reported by a document signed by the general manager.”

“Documentation is available upon written request to the attention of the general manager.”

“Retirement of patronage capital -801,406. Patronage dividend allocated 2,436,232. Patronage refunds 16,352.”

“There have been no changes to the oversight process.”

“The irs instructions state that patronage dividends paid by section 501(c)(12) organizations to their members should be reported on line 4. The organization has interpreted patronage dividends paid to mean patronage dividends allocated or to be allocated for the current year. Since this allocation is not an expense under generally accepted accounting principles (gaap), this has resulted in a reconciling item to net assets in part xi, on page 12 of the form 990.”