RETURN SUBVERSION

 Garkane administrators are not focused on providing a product and service to co-op members at the lowest possible cost. (See fact #2 above.) The current CEO admitted that giveaways are “not funded by money that if reapplied, would reduce electric rates. The reason is, the funding for these charitable giving efforts comes from an account which is called “unclaimed capital credits.” The Garkane CEO and Board of Directors lobbied legislators to earmark allowed gifting that prevented funds accruing from a power charge from being used to pay down power costs. The identified earmarks result in a managed loss to the coop. If unclaimed property cannot be used to pay down power costs, the authors of House Bills 255 and 266 intended to take margins from members rather than return them as promised. 

The ownership transfer of unclaimed capital credits is a very co-op destructive scheme. It is a serious betrayal of member trust. The conception and enacting of HB255 is a deliberate action initiated that subverts the margin return process. If a coop management has no current address for an owner of retired capital credits, the owner can still find and claim his/her property if it is remitted to The Unclaimed Property Division of the Office of State Treasurer. The Utah State Treasurer advertises and returns millions of dollars to property owners and heirs every year that discover and claim lost property. Lobbying legislation that will allow coop managers to skip this step in the return process prevents unclaimed property owners from finding their property. HB255 is an action that prevents the return of margins through owner discovery. This lobbied “retain” and “use” bill prevents property owners from discovering property they “lost,” enabling administrators to confiscate it for their own use.