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For immediate release
June 13, 2006 at 10:56am
For more information, contact
Patti Bogan, 762-4736 Cell - 242-0704

Chugach Electric may have a check for you

Chugach Electric Association is a utility organized as a member-owned cooperative. That means that any margins the cooperative earns in a year belong to the member-owners that pay the bills. Margins (what another business might call profits) are credited to individual members in proportion to the bills they paid. This is the cooperative's "capital credits" program.

Following a year in which the cooperative earns margins, Chugach provides each member of record a capital credits statement showing their share of the margins. Margins from a given year are used for a period of time by the cooperative to help meet the capital needs of the utility and thereby reduce the cost of borrowing money - and the corresponding impact on the rates paid by customers. Margins are returned to the members of record from the year in which they were earned by a vote of the utility board of directors. This action is known as a capital credits retirement.

Across the country most electric cooperatives retire capital credits after holding them for about 20 years.

In 2004 and 2005 Chugach mailed checks or notices to - or credited the accounts of - more than 33,000 members of record due a share of the $3.9 million in retail margins earned in 1986. Thousands of checks and notices were either not cashed or returned as undeliverable.

Former members or their estates may still claim their capital credits for the 2004 and 2005 retirements. Chugach is currently seeking updated information on these members.

A special supplement listing more than 18,000 members of record still due a capital credits check from the 2004 and 2005 retirements has been published twice in the Anchorage Daily News, generating several hundred inquires from members. The list will be published again on June 18 and 25. The names can also be found at www.chugachelectric.com. The supplement and Web site both include a form to fill out to update contact information. Past and present members may also receive information about their capital credits accounts by calling Chugach at 563-7366.

By mailing to the last address of record and publishing the names, Chugach complies with the legal requirements to prevent unclaimed capital credits from escheating to the State of Alaska. Credits from these retirements that have not been claimed by Dec. 31, 2006, will revert to Chugach.

 

Chugach is the largest electric utility in Alaska, providing power for Alaskans throughout the Railbelt through retail, wholesale and economy energy sales.