The Pedernales Electric Cooperative board of directors considered a debt collection proposal at Monday’s meeting to correct a system that purges $3 million annually on delinquency rates and non-collectable debt.
The co-op also announced a slight rate reduction for electricity and a plan to develop a member “Bill of Rights” and have members vote on bylaws changes in June.
Short-term, mid-term and long-term changes to debt recovery were submitted at the meeting by Eddie Dauterive, member services manager. “The whole goal is to lower our bad debt,” Dauterive told the board.
Short-term adjustments to the debt collection plan include, cooperative-wide guidelines for fee adjustments and delinquency exceptions, up-front deposits and payments for services, social security and driver’s license number databases, and clear collection guidelines for debt collection.
The co-op says the non-collectable debt is less than one-half of one percent of monthly collections.
