Cullman Electric Cooperative members gathered Saturday for the utility’s 87th annual meeting.

Tim Culpepper, CEO, updated members on the co-op’s work during the past year and discussed future plans.

“Anyone who drives around our service territory can tell that we are growing as a community. We have always known that this is a great place to live and raise a family, but more and more people are finding out and we can see this growth at the co-op,” said Culpepper.

While touting growth, Culpepper also pointed to growing pains.

“Our operations department has seen a substantial increase in the number of work orders it receives,” said Culpepper. “That includes everything from staking and construction for new services, regular request to connect and disconnect existing electrical services, security lights and pretty much everything that we do.

“The growth on our system, combined with supply chain shortages that are still recovering from the COVID pandemic, have resulted in longer-than-usual wait times for service.”

Along with shortages, Cullman County was hit by more severe weather events in the first eight months of 2023 than in any full year since it started tracking storm data in 1992, according to the National Weather Service.

“Mother Nature has kept us extremely busy over the past year,” said Culpepper.

Those issues and the TVA’s 4.5% cost increase on wholesale power, co-op members will see a cost increase, but officials say they will only see a portion of that passed along.

“Our members will not see a 4.5% increase on their bill; we estimate that because of the way that we have chosen to pass along those costs, the average residential bill at Cullman Electric Cooperative will only increase 2.7%. We may need a rate increase in the future, but we know that some of our members are struggling to pay their bills. Cullman Electric is not raising rates again this year,” said Culpepper.

“Unfortunately, we believe that TVA will have another rate increase next year, but we will cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Culpepper announced Sprout Fiber Internet — which recently signed up its 8,000th subscriber — will make high-speed broadband internet available to another 7,000 co-op members. Around 40 percent of those who are eligible for service have signed up for high-speed broadband, according to Culpepper.

The 2024 Sprout expansion plan is possible, in part, due to grant funding with 10 of the 12 areas selected as a result of that funding.

“We received a $1.7 million congressional appropriation thanks to the Congressman Robert Aderholt. Our state delegation of Sen. Garlan Gudger and Representatives Randall Shedd, Corey Harbison and Tim Wadsworth were instrumental in helping us secure a $4.5-million grant from ADECA. Thank you to all of these elected officials for their support and leadership in helping bring high-speed internet to the communities they represent,” said Culpepper.

“We have said from the beginning that we would continue growing Sprout as long as there was demand from our members, with the ultimate goal of making Sprout available to every co-op member. Our 2024 expansion plan is another positive step toward that goal, which we hope to accomplish over the next two to three years.”

A total of 5,189 co-op members registered and voted by mail, with an additional 185 members casting their ballot at Saturday’s meeting. All three incumbent board members were re-elected.

Here are the results of the Cullman EC Board of Trustees election:

DISTRICT 7 TRUSTEE

• David Hembree 3,082
• Rex Seymore 2,169

DISTRICT 8 TRUSTEE

• Chad Alexander 4,911

AT-LARGE TRUSTEE

• Lynda Carter 2,276
• Anita Kilpatrick 1,225
• Neil Ed Rainwater II 1,754

55-inch LG HTDV — Joel Ferrell

Solo Bonfire pit — Troy Biggs

RTIC cooler — Dave Fagner

Blink outdoor camera system — Virgil Cochran

Cullman County Fair ticket package – Pat Weissend