Board of Trustees

Trustee Responsibilities

The Coastal Elec­tric Board of Trustees is respon­si­ble for the gov­er­nance of the coop­er­a­tive. This includes the over­sight of the Coop­er­a­tive to ensure that it is being oper­at­ed accord­ing to estab­lished laws and poli­cies, that it is finan­cial­ly sound, and that it meets the over­all coop­er­a­tive mis­sion of pro­vid­ing the best ser­vice at the low­est pos­si­ble cost. The main areas of board gov­er­nance includes:

Member Advocacy

The CEC board trustees are the advo­cates for the mem­bers who own the coop­er­a­tive. As such, they are respon­si­ble for mak­ing sure the mem­bers’ inter­ests are being tak­en care of, from ensur­ing demo­c­ra­t­ic mem­ber con­trol to adopt­ing sound board poli­cies. They also have input into CEC rates as well as bylaws and busi­ness rules which gov­ern the cooperative’s deal­ings with mem­bers.

Legal & Ethical Accountability

CEC trustees adopt and enforce poli­cies, res­o­lu­tions, and actions gov­ern­ing eth­i­cal con­duct, account­abil­i­ty, and com­pli­ance with applic­a­ble laws and reg­u­la­tions.

Financial Oversight

The board of direc­tors estab­lish­es finan­cial tar­gets and goals and approves the cooperative’s bud­get. Board mem­bers also review and approve sig­nif­i­cant invest­ments, loans, and acqui­si­tions, and the rates and terms for pro­vid­ing elec­tric ser­vice to mem­bers. The board is respon­si­ble for eval­u­at­ing peri­od­ic finan­cial state­ments, reports, and oth­er per­ti­nent infor­ma­tion.

Operational Oversight

The board dis­charges its duty to man­age the affairs of the coop­er­a­tive by del­e­gat­ing day-to-day man­age­ment respon­si­bil­i­ties to a chief exec­u­tive offi­cer (CEO). The CEO is hired by and answers to the board. Board mem­bers con­sid­er and approve CEC busi­ness ini­tia­tives.

Regular Board Meetings

Pur­suant to adopt­ed bylaw require­ments, reg­u­lar board meet­ings are held on the 4th Tues­day of each month at 5:00 PM.

Trustee Compensation

Board Trustees are not Coop­er­a­tive employ­ees and do not receive a salary. How­ev­er, they are right­ly com­pen­sat­ed for their time and reim­bursed for their expens­es in ser­vice to the Coop­er­a­tive. They receive a per diem pay­ment for attend­ing meet­ings, con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion pro­grams, and oth­er such duties. The per diem for Coastal Elec­tric Cooperative’s Board Trustees can be found in the Mem­ber Sec­tion.

How to Become a Member of the Board

Any mem­ber of Coastal Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive is eli­gi­ble to run for the board pro­vid­ing they meet all the require­ments set forth in the mem­ber-adopt­ed bylaws. A brief sum­ma­ry of the require­ments is stat­ed below but in no way should be con­sid­ered a com­pre­hen­sive list of all require­ments. For com­plete details and require­ments please review the cur­rent bylaws and board poli­cies in our mem­ber doc­u­ment cen­ter.

Qualifications

To be eli­gi­ble to become or remain a Trustee, a per­son must meet the min­i­mum qual­i­fi­ca­tions as set forth in Arti­cle IV.03 of the Bylaws, in addi­tion to the require­ments as set forth in the Board Pol­i­cy 108 “Qual­i­fi­ca­tions for Eli­gi­bil­i­ty for Ser­vice on the Board of Trustees and Respon­si­bil­i­ties of Trustees.”

The require­ments of any per­son wish­ing to become and remain a Trustee of the Coop­er­a­tive include but are cer­tain­ly not lim­it­ed to:

1. Be a Mem­ber;
2. Not com­mit or omit a Sus­pen­sion Rea­son;
3. Per­ma­nent­ly Reside at a Loca­tion with­in any Trustee Dis­trict from which the Trustee is elect­ed or cho­sen;
4. Use a Coop­er­a­tive Ser­vice at a Loca­tion with­in the Trustee Dis­trict from which the Trustee is elect­ed or cho­sen; and
5. Be a Mem­ber in ‘good stand­ing’ of the Coop­er­a­tive or any sub­sidiary. A Mem­ber is not in ‘good stand­ing’ when that Mem­ber has had ser­vices from the Coop­er­a­tive or any sub­sidiary cut off or ter­mi­nat­ed by the Coop­er­a­tive.
6. If a Joint Mem­ber, not have a spouse serv­ing as Trustee.