Tracking Legal Events involving Electric & Telephone Cooperatives

Another issue the full extent of which is not fully known is that of plain old corruption.

Entrenched managers and compliant Boards at some Coops have taken actions that have lead to criminal investigations and criminal indictments.

While this may not be widespread, it has surfaced at Coops which have been subjected to the scrutiny of vigilent Coop Members and competent and aggressive lawyers representing them.

This issue is being litigated with several Coops:

Once Coop management becomes entrenched, they often begin to have a sense of entitlement to excessive pay and compensation.

Clearly employees are entitled to a fair wage for their work but at most Coops management has few responsibilities since they (i) have no competition, (ii) have a monopoly, (iii) are not regulated and (iv) are not supervised by state or federal government and (v) there is no market for the Coop "stock" so market forces do not deter malfeasance.

Other than deciding how much to mark up the electricity they purchase, the most important duty of Coop managers is to decide what color of pickup trucks to buy for the Coop's fleet.  Such responsibilities does not justify compensation of many hundreds of thousands of dollars but still several Coop Managers make nearly $1 Million a year if not more.

This issue is being litigated with several Coops: