West Richland Complex Information & Comments Form
In 2021, Benton REA purchased 17 acres of land for future development. The land is located in West Richland on Cooperative Way, just off Keene Road.
Aging facilities require improvements in both West Richland and Prosser.
- Increase costs to address maintenance and repair issues
- Current HVAC failing - increased frequency of service calls and cost
- Electrical issues causing internal loss of power, overloading circuits
- Run down facilities due to age and increased traffic
All members benefit from future property improvements.
- West Richland complex results in several properties in Prosser and West Richland that are surplus and can be sold
- District office and crew will remain in the Prosser area to serve members closer to it
- Will consolidate district office facilities and eliminate crews stopping at 2-4 locations to get material before they leave for the outage or job site
- Operational efficiencies result in more work time, faster response time = better service
- Improves service to everyone, not just those closer to West Richland
All comments will be posted on this site for members to view. Please refrain from using profane language. All comments will be reviewed for such language prior to posting.
I retired from Benton REA at the end of 2017 after being the manager of finance for the last 25 of the 27 years that I as employed by the Coop. No where in your discussion of the complex do you mention that it will probably cost around $30,000,000. You mention that the cost per residential customer will increase $7 per month. Since all of the $30,000,000 will be borrowed at the rate of 4.3% (RUS web site) for 30 years (typical for headquarter facilities) this results in the following incremental annual costs: Interest Expense $1,280,196; (Annual Debt service cost of $1,781,537) Depreciation Expense $1,000,000; RUS Tier Requirement (1.25) $320,049; Property Tax $378,000 for a total increase in annual cost of $2,978,245 - so based upon your membership numbers that is a monthly increase of $20.68 per member and a monthly increase per account of $15.51. So if the residential increase is only $7 per month evidently the irrigators and the small and large commercial accounts will see a very large increase in their monthly base charge or their kilowatt hour charge.
An expenditure like this is beyond defensible! There is no way from a financial perspective this makes any sense whatsoever! This complex is definitely not a "need" but a "want" by the Board and the Mangement. The upgrades that you may need at your current facilities in Prosser and West Richland are insignificant when compared to the incremental costs of this new facility. This is just another financial burden born by the rate payer who will see absolutely no benefit from this facility only added costs! Your morale problems at Benton REA are not going to be solved by building this facility.
Don't you think the general public is going to start to wonder why there are four electric utility "complexes" (Benton PUD, City of Richland, Franklin PUD, and now Benton REA) located within 15 miles of each other. A tremendous amount of duplication - maybe we ought to have just one and reduce some of the costs??!!