West Florida Electric News

West Florida Electric Cooperative Announcement of Transition to Centralized Dispatching

West Florida Electric is in the process of transitioning to centralized dispatching, warehousing, construction, maintenance, and repair. These transitions will reduce overall operating costs associated with duplication of services and increase efficiencies in the aforementioned areas. Moving forward, Bonifay employees working on line crews, in the warehouse, and in the mechanic shop will report to the Graceville office. The Bonifay office is not closing. It will remain open to walk-in and drive-thru business, Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. Services currently available and provided to members by our member services representatives will continue seamlessly. Members will not notice a difference in the overall member experience or level of service provided. West Florida Electric is making these changes to meet our goal of providing safe, reliable, and affordable service to our members.

The primary reasons and benefits to West Florida Electric Cooperative’s members are:

1. Safety – this will allow one department to keep track of all construction crews’ locations and which lines are energized at any given time while crews are working. This will help prevent accidents and be a safer and more efficient way to work.
   
   
2. Efficiency and consistency of service – these changes will improve the efficiency of departments through centralized management of work flow and procedures and allow for a consistent member experience throughout the cooperative.
   
   
3. Reliability – this will help improve reliability through centralized management of the co-op’s ongoing upgrades, construction, maintenance, and repair as well as outage dispatching and response. This will also provide a better way to measure response and outage times.
   
   
4. Cost savings – having one centralized department (instead of multiple) will save money on overhead and operating costs. This will also help hold the line on potential rate increases. The savings to WFEC members is approximately $850,000 per year.
   
   

Centralized Dispatching FAQs & Talking Points: 

Question: What is centralized dispatching?

Answer: One centralized location that monitors day-to-day operations and after-hours emergency work and outages. 

Question: Why is the cooperative transitioning to this procedure? What are the benefits?

Answer: The co-op is reorganizing to create a centralized dispatch and to modernize its dispatching facilities and techniques. This will maximize safety, efficiency and reliability while reducing operating costs. The benefits are:

1. Safety – this will allow one department to keep track of all construction crews’ locations and which lines are energized while crews are working. This will help prevent accidents and be a safer and more efficient way to work. 
   
   
2. Efficiency and consistency of service – these changes will improve the efficiency of departments through centralized management of work flow and procedures and allow for a consistent member experience throughout the cooperative.
   
   
3. Reliability – this will help improve reliability through centralized management of the co-op’s ongoing upgrades, construction, maintenance, and repair as well as outage dispatching and response. This will also provide a better way to measure response and outage times.
   
   
4. Cost savings – having one centralized department (instead of multiple) will save money on overhead and operating costs. This will also help hold the line on potential rate increases and save members approximately $850,000 per year.  

Question: Is the Bonifay office closing?

Answer: No. Members will be able to handle any business needed at the office in person or over the phone. Members will not notice a difference in the overall member experience or level of service provided.

Question: How will moving linecrews from Bonifay not impact response times?

Answer: There are 168 hours in a week and linecrews are “at work” 40 of those. The rest of the time there are people being paid “standby” (they have a truck with them and respond to outages from wherever they are). There are restrictions about where they can be – but they can go to church, to their kid’s ball game and even out to dinner. They simply must respond when they are called. The bulk of the “at work” time they are not at the office – they are scattered across the service territory working. So, with this transition for 76 percent of the hours in a week, nothing will change. The only time outage response times will be different is during the first and last hours of the work day (8 hours/week) when the crews are actually in the office at the start and end of each work day. Increased efficiency of response times by adding centralized dispatching will decrease outage times in larger events and during working hours. Materials will remain available in Bonifay to any personnel when they need it – they will not have to travel back to Graceville for materials and supplies.

Question: How will this impact the service I receive as a member of WFEC?

Answer: The reorganization should not negatively impact the service you receive as a WFEC member at all. Services currently available at the Bonifay district will remain available except for purchasing used poles. Office hours also remain the same – Monday-Friday from 8AM-5PM. All service requests, new applications, the ability to make payments, and other services will be available in person or over the phone. These changes will not impact the overall member experience and will provide better outage response and more efficient use of resources.

Question: When will the transition begin?

Answer: The transition will begin May 20.

Question: Who made this decision?

Answer: Management staff implemented these changes upon recommendation by the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) after a comprehensive review of overall operations and efficiencies at the co-op. NRECA is the national organization that represents more than 900 member-owned, not-for-profit electric cooperatives in the United States. 

Question: Will co-op members be able to see the NRECA report of recommendations to improve co-op operations and efficiency?

Answer: This report involves confidential and proprietary information as well as personnel information that cannot be shared with the public. Co-op members elect a board of trustees to review information and make decisions based on what is best for all cooperative members in all four counties served by WFEC. 

Question: Will employees be impacted by this transition?

Answer: Moving forward, Bonifay employees working on line crews, in the warehouse, and in the mechanic shop will report to the Graceville office.Dedicated personnel will still be working in the area and available to handle all outages, maintenance, and construction as needed. No one will lose their job. 

Question: How much will this change save the cooperative’s members?

Answer: Approximately $850,000 per year.

Question: How will the co-op be saving $850,000 per year?

Answer: Not replacing employees who have left or retired. Co-ops across the nation are facing an aging workforce and WFEC is no different. As employees have and continue to retire, those positions and responsibilities will be taken on by current employees to better utilize our members’ resources. The co-op is repositioning employees to fill these vacant and future positions as employees retire. Reducing inventory by at least 20 percent.

Inventory costs will be reduced because fewer items will be on the shelf. Costs of equipment have greatly increased since COVID. For example, a transformer once was priced at $700. Post-COVID, the cooperative has paid as much as $3,700 for one. Many other factors that contribute to these savings have been taken into consideration by cooperative leaders. The cooperative maintains a large inventory of materials and supplies to maintain over 5,100 miles of line.

Question: How will this save money since no one is losing their job?

Answer: There are currently open positions that will not be filled. There are two things to consider when staffing offices with line crews. First, is the number of people needed to do the day-to-day work that is to be done. Second, the number of people required to be on call (standby) to respond to after hours outages. Since an on-call person must be available to respond to outages at all times after business hours (after hours, 24-hours each weekend and every holiday) we must spread this responsibility out. This standby/on-call duty is disruptive to employees’ lives and the more employees available to spread this among, the better work/life balance each employee will have. By consolidating the number of lineworkers from Bonifay and Graceville, we have increased the pool of employees to pull from to handle on-call and after-hours work, going from around 9 lineworkers to a pool of around 30. More lineworkers were needed to have enough employees to cover standby rotation in Bonifay, consolidating the crews with Graceville will eliminate the need to add additional lineworker positions. WFEC looked at the pros and cons and made the decision to consolidate the linemen into the Graceville office and not replace the open positions – this is how moving the crews will create cost savings.  

Question: How has this transition been communicated to members?

Answer: Emails were sent to any members who conducted business transactions in person or by phone with the Bonifay office over the past 4 years. A direct mail piece is being mailed to members in those areas who do not have a valid email address on file with the cooperative. A Facebook post has also been made. Information is also available on the cooperative’s website.

Question: Who can I speak with if I have any additional questions?

Answer: You may call 800-342-7400 and ask for the executive assistant.