American Public Power Association spokesperson tells Decorah audience reliable customer service is a big benefit of a municipal utility

LeAnne Sinclair, Director of Customer Programs for the American Public Power Association spoke at City Hall on Wednesday.

Sinclair shared on the topic "Municipal Electric Utilities Across the United States: Trends, Case Studies and Mythbusting." The APPA is the voice for not-for-profit, community owned utilities that power 2,000 towns and cities nationwide.

Iowa and Nebraska have the most public power utilities of all the states in the United States. The smallest city with a public power utility in Iowa is Kimballtown with 218 customers. Ames is the largest with 26,000 customers.

Sinclair shared the benefits of cities having their own Municipal Electric Utility. Local control that can be governed or regulated by the city, the community controlling decisions, and the city has the option to receive electric payments in lieu of property taxes.

Reliable customer service is another benefit as customers drive customer service, the line crews live in the city, or close by, and utilities can benefit from mutual aid agreements between utilities when needing help from a power outages due to storm damages.

Public power utilities have more affordable prices as they are not for profit and have lower administration costs. According to Sinclair, a residential customer generally pays 10-11 cents per killowatt-hour for electricity through a public power utility. Alliant Energy rates in Decorah are about 15 cents per killowatt-hour.

A final benefit for public power utilities are that they support local economy. Customers typically pay less, there are no dividend payments, investments can be made in local infrastructures, local businesses are supported, local employment is a benefit, and the utility can make contributions to local government, and support economic development programs.

Sinclair commented that not all communities that explore the public power option form a new utility, but they don't consider those failed efforts as their efforts can result in concessions from the current utility company including lower rates, improved service, investments in the community, possibly in solar options, and or a settlement fee.

There are currently funds being raised for a feasibility study to explore the creation of a Municipal Electric Utility in Decorah. To date almost $80,000 has been raised and an additional $20,000 is needed to complete the study.