Wiregrass Electric Cooperative

“Wiregrass Electric Cooperative is a not-for-profit membership organization whose members have identical voting rights and are assigned margins in accordance with the cooperative's bylaws.”

“At each annual meeting, trustees are elected by the cooperative membership to succeed those whose terms have expired.”

“The membership must approve decisions that involve substantial transfers of cooperative assets, amendments to the cooperative's bylaws, as well as other decisions requiring approval of the membership by law, the articles of incorporation, and/or the cooperative's bylaws.”

“The Form 990 was reviewed by management and the accounting staff at Wiregrass Electric Cooperative before it was provided to the trustees. An electronic or paper copy of the Form 990 was then provided to the trustees prior to filing the form with the Internal Revenue Service. They have ten days to comment on the 990 before filing.”

“Once per year, each director and key management employee receive a questionnaire to be completed and returned regarding this policy. The CEO makes sure every questionnaire is returned and reviewed every year. If a conflict of interest were to appear, he would address it or bring it to the board to be addressed, depending on the situation.”

“The process for determining compensation for the CEO and other key employees is as follows: The board uses annual Compensation Surveys and Studies from the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association to evaluate the CEO's pay. The NRECA surveys more than 800 electric distribution cooperatives each year and publishes the results. AREA also distributes a Wage and Salary survey that is used in the evaluation process. The board also reviews salary of other cooperatives in our area for CEO positions. The entire board reviews the information, deliberates, takes a recorded vote and then delegates to the CFO to implement any approved compensation changes for the CEO. The positions of all other employees are graded based on knowledge, skill and ability needed to perform the job. All pay rates are made without consideration of an individual's race, sex, age, ethnicity, disability, religion or vertebra status. The CEO, Manager of HR and Compliance and CFO will maintain and update a spreadsheet for each non-union position each year when the NRECA Compensation Survey is published. The spreadsheet will maintain a minumum for 4 data points for each position as mapped to the job code assigned to the position in the NRECA Defined Benefit Plan, and reported each November for the DB Plan. The data points on the spreadsheet for each position constitute the ranges for that position. The data points are as follows: (1) National Average for that position, (2) National Average for cooperatives our size for that position (filtered either 23,000 to 27,000 meters currently, or 21,000 to 29,000 currently, depending on the filter needed to get a statistically significant average), (3) The median wage for the position as described in 1 or 2 above, using 2 if it is statiscally significant and it is not an extreme outlier and 1 if 2 can not be used, and (4) State Average for the position if available (some positions in Alabama are not common enough to be statisically valid). In addition to these 4 data points, WEC will particpate in the AREA Wage Survey as long as it is conducted, and collect 2 data points from the AREA Alabama Survey when they are available. Those 2 data points are the AREA Alabama State Average, and the AREA Alabama Median for each position. Management will map the state job codes (old NRECA job codes) to the new NRECA job codes. These data points provide additional context on a few positions statewide which tend to be mapped differently than the national data collected through NRECA. Unfortunately, consideration had to be given to the fact that this is a voluntary survey with only 16 or 18 of the 22 Alabama cooperatives consistently participating. In addition, whereas the NRECA data is available in March each year, in time to be utilized for our annual June pay and performance evaluations, the AREA state data is normally not available until July or later, making it one year behind the National Survey at the time the data is used. However, in some cases, the 2 AREA State data points provide a helpful context when evaluating ranges and outliers, so that our spreadsheets are updated each Fall to include them in the succeeding years process. When a person has the experience, knowledge, skill and ability and soft skills to fully perform the duties of a position, the overall goal is for that person to be at or near the midpoint in the scale. The pay scales are updated annually prior to annual employee evaluations. Each non-union employee is individually evaluated by their supervisor using a template that includes comments on strengths and weakness as well any need for improvement. Based on these written evaluations (merit based), and the supervisor's consultation with the CEO, pay adjustments are made annually (within the board approved budget) to move each employee incrementally in the direction of the mid-point of the scale. Each year as annual evaluations are being conducted the updated compensation spreadsheets will be made available to”

“These documents are available upon request at the cooperative's main office in Hartford, Alabama. Also, the governing documents are posted on the company's website- www.wiregrass.coop”

“The instructions to the 2020 Form 990 indicate that organizations exempt under Section 501 (c)(12) should report patronage dividends paid to their members in Part IX, Line 4 of the Form 990. Wiregrass Electric Cooperative has interpreted the words "patronage dividends paid" in the instructions to mean margins that are assigned or assignable to the members. Wiregrass Electric Cooperative assigns the net margins to its members each year. Therefore, the amount listed in Part IX, Line 4 represents the net margins assignable to the members for the calendar year ended December 31, 2020.”

“Change in Memberships 1,785. Retirement of Capital Credits -1,969,609. Gain on Retirement of Capital Credits 645,619. Assignment of net margins to members 3,719,249.”

“Wiregrass Electric Cooperative's financial statement year end differs from its tax year end. The cooperative receives audited financial statements on an annual basis for the year ended April 30th.”

“A Single Audit was conducted at 04/30/2020 by Jackson Thornton in conjunction with Wiregrass Electric Cooperative, Inc. financial audit. The department of Homeland Security adopted 2 CFR Part 200 to be effective December 26, 2014. The new ruling applies to all FEMA grant awards made on or after December 26, 2014. FEMA grant was awarded in 2019-2020 for Hurricane Michael.”