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Cherryland Electric Cooperative (CEC) belongs to the National Rural Utility Cooperative Finance Corporation (CFC) which is a bank for electric cooperatives across the country. Every year CFC analyzes the financial statements of hundreds of cooperatives and issues each one a report of some 145 different financial ratios. This allows cooperatives like CEC to see how our ratios/"grades" stack up against cooperatives in the state and nation. CFC also includes a peer group ranking that puts us into a group of cooperatives of similar size. Of the almost 900 cooperatives, CEC is in a peer group of 61 co-ops that have 25,000 members or more. Because cooperatives across the country vary from as little as several hundred members to over 100,000 (CEC has just over 32,000), this peer group of 61 provides us the best "apples to apples" comparison of some key financial indicators. Below you will find how your cooperative's grades compare on a per consumer basis for our financial year ending 12-31-2005 on a small handful of the key financial grades:Revenue Per Consumer: CEC took in an average of $932 per consumer. The average for our peer group was $1499. There was only one cooperative in the 61 member peer group with a lower average. I attribute much of this to our weather. We have relatively cool summers and rarely if ever see below zero weather in the winter. It is also an indication that there is a large concentration of gas water heating in our service area and not as much commercial industry as seen at other peer group cooperatives. Average Residential Usage KWH Per Month: The average CEC consumer uses only 703 kwh each month compared to a peer group average of 1177 kwh. There were 6 cooperatives with a lower monthly usage than CEC. This ties directly to the revenue number above. If we could increase average usage slightly, revenue would go up without any additional major investment in facilities making your cooperative much more efficient from an investment standpoint. Long Term Debt Per Consumer: In 2005, CEC owed lenders an average of $756 per consumer while our peer group was nearly twice this amount at $1509. Once again, there were only 6 cooperatives with a lower average debt number. So, while revenue is low, cooperative management has been effective over the years in keeping debt in a like proportion. This also keeps rates lower as we have less interest expense than most cooperatives. Total Utility Plant Investment Per Consumer: This dollar figure represents how much CEC has invested in poles, wires, trucks and other capital structures per consumer. The peer group average came in at $3392 per consumer while your cooperative's number was $1883. No cooperative in the peer group of 61 had a lower number. This can be linked to our small service territory and rapid growth over the last decade. An average cooperative will have 5-6 meters per mile of line while at CEC we are closing in on 12 meters per mile. Thus, we have much less poles and wires in the ground reducing our overall investment while allowing us to serve a large consumer base. This is another good efficiency grade. Total Operating Expenses Per Consumer: Everything associated with keeping the lights on every day came to $219 per consumer at CEC in 2005. The peer group number was $293. There were 5 cooperatives of the 61 with a better number than CEC. This basically answers the question of how we fiscally manage our daily operations compared to other similar cooperatives. Average Consumers Per Employee: This is a great measure of manpower efficiency at which CEC is better than all the other peer group cooperatives. Your cooperative has 1 employee for every 616 consumers while the peer group average is 1 employee for each 340 consumers. This is also a big contributor towards the low amount of operating expenses per consumer. Overall, we are proud of the financial report card for 2005. There is room to improve but certainly many good grades indicate we are headed in the right direction.