STORY CONTACT: Blake House-Sawnee EMC

PHONE: (770) 887-2363, ext 7-510

NEW BILL BRINGS THOUSANDS TO

EMC COMMUNITIES

          (Cumming, May 11, 2005)—On May 4, Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue signed House Bill 431, a piece of legislation that was passed during the recent session of the General Assembly.  With his signature, a new Georgia law was created that could bring thousands of dollars annually to communities served by Electric Membership Corporations (EMCs) statewide, including Sawnee EMC.
 

            This new legislation, HB 431, sponsored by Representatives Willie Talton, Larry O’Neal, Jerry Keen, Mark Burkhalter, Vance Smith and others, will under certain conditions, allow EMCs to retain certain unclaimed property (e.g. unclaimed capital credits) that historically would be turned over to the state.
 

            “This is a good day for Georgia communities,” says Blake House, Vice President of Member Services with Sawnee EMC.  “This legislation has the potential to allow EMC members’ unclaimed funds to help educate their children, help attract businesses to Georgia and help charities provide services to those in need.”
 

            For co-ops, capital credits (a.k.a. “patronage dividends”) or margins are those funds that are over and above the cost of providing service for customer-owners of an EMC for a specific year after EMC financial obligations have been met.

            Until now, unclaimed capital credits were remitted or returned to the state Department of Revenue, under Georgia’s Disposition of Unclaimed Property Act (DUPA) after five years, but the new legislation will allow unclaimed capital credits to remain in the communities served by the EMCs, such as Sawnee.  The amount of unclaimed patronage dividends will fluctuate annually, depending on the amount of capital credits refunded to members in a given year.
 

Georgia joins 23 other states in the nation that already donate unclaimed capital credits for education, economic development and charitable organizations.
 

             Sawnee EMC is a consumer-owned cooperative providing electricity and related services to 137,000 consumers in Forsyth, Fulton, Gwinnett, Dawson, Lumpkin, Cherokee and Hall counties.  Collectively, the 42 EMCs in Georgia provide electricity and related services to four million people, nearly half of Georgia’s population, across 73 percent of the state’s land area. Georgia’s 42 EMCs now serve more customers than any other state network of EMCs in the nation.

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