January 31, 2006

GRDA accelerates steps to improve accountability

Vinita  -- The Grand River Dam Authority is announcing it plans to request assistance from Oklahoma State Auditor and Inspector Jeff A. McMahan in arranging an audit of the agency’s expenditures. GRDA made the announcement Tuesday afternoon and will seek approval for the audit request from the GRDA Board of Directors at its February 8 meeting in Vinita.

"Over the past year, GRDA staff has begun the process of drafting and implementing procedures and rules to improve accountability," said GRDA Chief Executive Officer Kevin Easley. "I intend to ask our board for assistance in accelerating the process. With this request of the Oklahoma State Auditor, we simply want to be proactive and put recent negative publicity behind us so we could get back to the business of being Oklahoma’s low-cost power provider."

That negative publicity surrounds the establishment of a GRDA satellite office in Oklahoma City, travel expenses and other equipment expenditures.

"Many of our ratepayers know about the improvements we’ve made to our operations in the past two years," said Easley, "and I want them to know GRDA is willing to open its books to an official audit. We’ve made some improvements in the ways we conduct business and we’ve done it with the goal of becoming a positive force for economic development, tourism and environmental protection of northeastern Oklahoma."

Headquartered in Vinita, GRDA is a self-supporting state agency, funded by revenues from the sale of electricity instead of taxes. GRDA transmits electricity across a 24-county service area in Northeastern Oklahoma via a sophisticated energy-delivery system that includes over 2,000 miles of transmission line. Since GRDA answers to state legislatures and federal regulators such as Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Easley said he has concerns about the agency’s credit ratings due to the negative publicity. In March of 2005, one of the three large credit rating agencies, Fitch, improved GRDA’s outlook from stable to positive, marking the first time the rating agency had ever improved GRDA’s rating.

Maintaining those good credit ratings is a high priority for GRDA, said Easley, because it allows the agency to borrow money at lower interest rates. That is important, said Easley, as GRDA continues to move forward for the benefit of ratepayers and the citizens of Oklahoma.

"Lately, responding to negative publicity has slowed the implementation of new control policies and overshadowed the progress we've made," said Easley. "We’ve talked to our legislators in the district who agree it’s time to get this issue behind us. We offered the idea of an audit and they're supportive."

Earlier this month, GRDA received a "certificate of achievement" for excellence in financial reporting from the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA), marking the fifth straight year it had achieved that honor. According to GFOA, the certificate is considered to be the highest form of recognition in governmental accounting and financial reporting.

GRDA sells wholesale power to three customer classes: municipals, electric cooperatives and industries. GRDA has served the majority of its public power municipal electric customers for over 50 years.