A business corporation chartered by the State of Texas and operating under Texas laws. It is wholly owned and controlled by the people in Hansford, Hemphill, Hutchinson, Lipscomb, Ochiltree, Roberts and Wheeler counties, to whom it provides electric service. It pays all state and local taxes. The North Plains Electric Cooperative is a business owned by a specific group of people, (not the public) so it is a private enterprise. The people who use its services are members of the organization. Therefore, these members own and control North Plains. As a cooperative, North Plains Electric Cooperative operates on a non-profit basis. All revenues, over and above the cost of doing business for a year, are credited to members under a patronage refund plan called Capital Credits. Your cooperative’s electric rates are designed to bring in enough money to pay operating costs, meet loan payments, and provide a reserve for emergencies. At the end of each calendar year, we subtract our operating expenses from the collected revenue for the year; the balance is our “margin.” Every year that the cooperative produces a margin, member’s individual shares of that margin are credited or allocated to individual capital credit accounts. In the past margins have been typically returned on a twenty-year rotation. Each year the board of directors determines if the financial condition of the cooperative will not be impaired by the return of this investment. The aim of North Plains Electric Cooperative, Inc. is to make electric energy available to its members at the lowest cost consistent with sound economy and good management.