Making “cents” of where your dollar goes

We’re fortunate here at Salt River Electric. Because of the cooperative business model, we don’t have to answer to outside investors or shareholders when it comes to making decisions. Instead, we answer to you, our member-owners. That’s one of the reasons cooperatives are so special: we listen to the people we serve each and every day.

Because of that, we believe it’s important that you know how your dollars are spent when you pay your electric bill each month. The best way of doing that? Breaking down the percentage of where each dollar from our members goes.

By far, our biggest expense as a cooper-ative is the cost of purchasing power, with nearly 83 cents out of every dollar going toward it. It’s also the area where we, and other cooperatives, have seen the greatest upward pressures in recent years.

Our other costs help us effectively run the cooperative. As always, our top priority at Salt River Electric is to provide members with safe, reliable and afford-able power. In order to achieve those goals, investments need to be made to maintain the power grid, restore power during outages and offer a variety of member services. We also account for interest, taxes, depreciation, capital credits and the administrative costs of running a member-owned cooperative.

Every portion of every dollar spent is an investment in our members and is approved by the board of directors. At a time when it feels like we’re all getting less for more, we want you to feel confident that Salt River Electric is working every day to make your dollar go further.