Welcome to the website of the virtual 2020 JCREMC Annual Meeting. First and foremost, your electric cooperative’s Board of Directors, Leadership Team, and Staff want to acknowledge that as your neighbors and friends, we understand that this is a trying time for so many of our members. While we are heartbroken over the reason for our annual meeting cancellation, we want to assure you that our priorities in serving our members and community remain.

In addition to temporarily suspending disconnects and late fees for our members and taking precautions to protect the health of our employees, we’re demonstrating our concern for community in tangible ways. That includes monetary donations already made to local organizations working to meet our community residents’ most basic needs, as well as participation in an area task force mobilizing to make sure disaster relief is available to those who need it. I encourage you to keep an eye on our website and Facebook pages for any updates on our disaster response.

Our community is strong, and together we will get through this.

As you may know, the JCREMC Annual Meeting is a time when we gather to celebrate the successes of the past year and look toward the future. While we’re not able to be together this year, I still want to take a few minutes to celebrate the wins of 2019 and to give you an idea of our vision for the future.

A LOOK AT 2019

The JCREMC Board of Directors, Leadership Team, and Staff share a vision for the cooperative and are dedicated to being the most efficient, customer service-oriented, and forward-thinking utility in Indiana. Over the last year, we have made significant progress in improving business processes and efficiency by empowering employees to identify and implement changes that have saved both time and money. Some other highlights from 2019:

• JCREMC experienced rapid membership growth with 530 new residences and numerous large commercial accounts.
• The Board of Directors and Leadership Team developed a strategic plan that includes 27 measurable initiatives to guide us through the next decade.
• Our JCFiber subsidiary grew substantially.
• We maintained 99.9 percent electric service reliability.

Given the intricacies and potential points of failure in an electrical system, 99.9 percent reliability is phenomenal, as is the fact that when we did have outages, our line crews were able to keep the average outage time to just 68 minutes. Most importantly, we safely operated our systems, which grew to more than 27,000 electric and 300 fiber internet accounts.

Even as raw materials, equipment, labor, and insurance costs continue to rise, our rates have remained stable and under normal circumstances there is no increase expected in the coming years. This comes at a time when neighboring investor-owned utilities are seeking double-digit percentage rate increases. We are assessing the potential financial impacts from the current pandemic and are doing everything we can to maintain rate stability as we navigate through these uncertain waters. Please know that we continually seek ways to lower costs and offset upward pressures on your rates.

Thanks to you, our generous cooperative members, JCREMC’s Operation Round-Up® Community Grants Program was able to award over $48,000 to non-profit charitable organizations in our community during the first grants cycle in November 2019. Applications for these grants are available twice each year—in April and October—and we look forward to supporting our community in this way in 2020.

All Operation Round-Up® funds come from members who opt to round their monthly electric bills to the nearest whole dollar. That money is automatically deposited in the JCREMC Community Fund, which is administered by the Johnson County Community Foundation. A voluntary advisory board oversees the fund, the program’s bylaws, and grant applications and selection. The advisory board has agreed to allocate a large portion of this spring’s Operation Round-Up® funds to the much-needed county-wide pandemic relief efforts.

Additionally, the JCREMC Help Fund, which is funded entirely by voluntary personal donations from our employees, will be deployed for COVID-19 response.

Being the CEO of JCREMC is a privilege and I appreciate having a dedicated Board of Directors and Leadership Team who set high expectations and provide the resources and support to make things happen. The staff of your electric cooperative are second-to-none. These people are committed to ensuring your lights are on, your rates stay as low as possible, you have the resources you need to lower your monthly bills through electric efficiency, and you receive professional and courteous customer service when you interact with us.

THE FUTURE OF JCREMC

As we look to the future, one of our priorities is to make it easier for you to access and navigate important information from your electric cooperative. In February, we launched the new myJCREMC mobile app for iOS and Android. This app allows you access to your account, usage data, and billing preferences wherever you are. myJCREMC replaces SmartHub but your login credentials stay the same.

In late March, we launched the all-new jcremc.com to give you easier access to your account, rates and billing options, ways to save, and more. We’re in the process of updating our newsletter and bolstering our electronic communication channels to better serve you. This includes our recently implemented text message outage notifications.

We look forward to a time when we can again safely gather for JCFiber’s ongoing Tech Talk series. We also look forward to launching our CEO Town Hall meetings. These semi-annual meetings will give you the chance to ask questions of me and hear updates from your electric cooperative. We had planned to host our first in late April but look forward to hopefully hosting this fall instead.

AN EVER-EVOLVING INDUSTRY

The electric industry is always changing. JCREMC’s leadership is constantly monitoring that evolution and embracing new technologies in the ways of electricity generation and distribution. With industry change comes many opportunities for improving the ways we serve our members.

An emerging technology JCREMC wants to help our members better understand and embrace is electric vehicles. The cost to operate these energy-efficient modes of transportation is far less than that of gas-powered vehicles, even with the recent decline in gasoline prices. Our on-staff energy advisor is available to answer your questions about EVs and our new EV website will help you calculate cost comparisons. We’re also working toward a super off-peak charging rate to make owning and operating an electric vehicle even more affordable. Stay tuned to our website and newsletter for future EV incentives and super off-peak rate announcement.

CLOSING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

Through our JCFiber subsidiary, we are working diligently to close the digital divide by bringing high-speed fiber-optic internet to the approximately 5,000 JCREMC members who don’t currently have access to true high-speed internet. By this fall, we plan to have fiber available to 1,000 of these members. Moving forward, we are working with members in targeted higher density areas to get residential sign-up commitments. In the lowest-density areas, we’re diligently seeking project funding through grants and private individuals.

You can learn more about JCFiber at jcfiber.com.

In closing, I just want to say thank you for a great 2019 and for allowing us to serve you. We look forward to a successful 2020. We also look forward to gathering together again at the 2021 JCREMC Annual Meeting.

Sincerely,

John W. Sturm
CEO