Thank you to all the members who joined us for the 2025 Annual Meeting—whether in person or by submitting an absentee ballot. Your participation and engagement help guide the direction of our cooperative and ensure that member voices remain at the heart of every decision we make.
This year’s meeting featured updates on key projects, a look ahead at upcoming investments, recognition of employees and directors, and the official results of the Board of Directors election. We appreciate the thoughtful questions, feedback, and conversations shared throughout the event.
Election Results
Below are the certified results for the 2025 Board of Directors election. These numbers were verified by the Inspectors of Election and recorded in the official meeting minutes.
Click here to view election results (PDF)
Thank you again to our members, candidates, and volunteers who helped make this year’s meeting a success. We look forward to continuing to serve you in the year ahead.
Q&A Panel Questions
The following questions were asked by members during our Annual Meeting, and the responses below reflect the answers provided at that time.
Please note: Some questions and answers have been edited or shortened for clarity and readability.
Your monthly bill has two main parts. The first is the per-kilowatt-hour charge, which reflects the energy you actually use—everything from lights, heating & cooling systems, appliances to irrigation pumps.
The second is the basic charge. That covers the cost of building and maintaining the system that brings power to your home or business: substations, transformers, poles, and lines. Maintaining that infrastructure is what keeps our service reliable. In fact, one member told us today they sold their generator because they’ve never needed it—which is exactly what we aim for.
Those two items—the energy you use and the basic charge—are the core components of your bill.
Facilities are part of our long-term strategic plan because we need safe, reliable, and sustainable workspaces for our employees—and our current buildings are aging. We’ve already completed the Grass Valley facility, which improves safety by allowing vehicles to pull out onto Highway 97 instead of backing into traffic, and it gives us more space for materials and basic amenities.
Next, we’ll be updating our Pomona facility in The Dalles with some interior improvements. We’re also working to secure a long-term site in Maupin and beginning to look ahead at future needs for our headquarters.
All of these projects support long-term sustainability, improve safety, and help us serve members better—including quicker response times during outages.
While we are not allowing new net metering accounts right now, our decision is rooted in a core cooperative value: fairness to all members.
Our board has already doubled the state’s required threshold for net metering participation, but every new net metering account added today would require the rest of the membership to subsidize that account—about $428 per year. That’s not something we can place on other members who do not have net-metering.
Once we complete our cost-of-service study in early 2027 and can ensure there’s no cross-subsidization, we look forward to opening the program again. We just ask for your patience until we can do so fairly for everyone.
Net metering allows a member to install solar or wind generation to offset their own energy use and receive credit from the cooperative for any excess power they produce. You can install solar generation on your own at any time, but net metering is specifically the program that credits you for the energy you place back to the grid beyond what you use in your home. We aren’t currently adding new net metering accounts, but once we’ve completed our cost-of-service study and ensured the structure is fair for all members, we plan to reopen the program.
Smart metering or digital metering is the next generation of meters—ones that no longer require a line crew to drive out and read them. Instead, the term smart meter refers to a digital meter that automatically records and sends energy use securely to us in regular intervals. With our new metering system, which is about one-third deployed, we’ll be able to see shorter intervals of energy use. That information will help us design future rate options that better fit members’ needs.
You may have already seen an example of this focus on choice with the new option we introduced for how members receive their capital credit payments. Updated metering will allow us to offer similar flexibility in rate structures.
These meters also let us remotely disconnect service when someone moves out or needs electrical work done, which means we don’t have to roll a truck for those tasks. That keeps our linemen focused on building and maintaining the system.
We expect the full metering system to be in place by September 30 of next year.
We want our members to benefit from more than reliable power and affordable rates, which is why you’re seeing Wasco Electric more active in the community. We support youth through buyers’ pools for local 4-H and FFA programs at county fairs, and we spend time in elementary classrooms teaching electrical safety. We also offer scholarships—both traditional college scholarships and support for students pursuing trade programs—so we encourage families to watch for those opportunities.
In addition, we simply want to be present in the communities we serve so you know who we are and we know you. This year we participated in the Warm Springs Energy Fair, as well as community events in Sherman County, Maupin, and Tygh Valley. We do our best to show up wherever we can, and if you have something happening in your community, please reach out—we’d be happy to join you.
There’s a lot happening with economic development and energy efficiency in the coming year. From an economic development standpoint, our focus is on making sure our system can support the growth and needs of our communities. All of our power—both our Tier 1 baseload and the additional Tier 2 power we occasionally need—comes from BPA. As we plan for the future, we look closely at the cost of bringing that power to homes, farms, businesses, and potential new industries.
Because we’re a not-for-profit cooperative, we don’t fund economic development through profits. Instead, we pursue grants to help build and upgrade infrastructure without increasing the burden on member rates. This includes improving lines that serve agricultural operations, supporting commercial and industrial expansion, and maintaining the systems our communities depend on—from farms and ranches to healthcare facilities and even local rodeo arenas.
For us, economic development is really about community enrichment. When we strengthen the systems that support how you live and work, meaningful economic growth can follow.