PEC: Burnett, Fuelberg Received Large Payments From Texland Account

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August 26, 2008

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PEC MEDIA CONTACT: Anne Harvey, (830) 868-4933; Austin line, (512) 219-2602

JOHNSON CITY – In a letter to Pedernales Electric, received Aug. 21, former PEC General Manager Bennie Fuelberg and former Board President W.W. “Bud” Burnett revealed payments made to them and to then-Pedernales Electric General Counsel A.W. Moursund from the recently disclosed Texland Electric Cooperative bank account. According to the letter, payments to Fuelberg and Burnett were approximately $111,600 each; Moursund received approximately $150,000. It is believed the payments were made in the late 1980s.

The one-time payments, according to the letter signed by Burnett and Fuelberg, were for work they and Moursund performed to help end decade-long litigation relating to the Texland project. “We believe the money we were paid by Texland was earned for years of hard but ultimately successful efforts on behalf of Texland, efforts that also benefited PEC,” the letter states. “Following this payment, we never received another payment from this account or from Texland.”

“We have forwarded this information to Navigant Consulting,” said current PEC General Manager Juan Garza, “and we will continue researching our own records and working with the Lower Colorado River Authority and Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative to inform our members and the public about all the confirmed details of this situation. At this juncture, we have found no record of our Board being informed of these payments prior to now, and sitting members who were on the Board at that time do not recall approving them.”

Upon receiving the letter from Fuelberg and Burnett, Garza shared the information with PEC and Texland Board members prior to making the information public.

“I am outraged at these new revelations,” said PEC District 4 Advisory Director Robert Reed, who has voiced strong support for learning all the details of the Texland bank account. “I was not aware that Texland was an active entity, and certainly not aware there was a non-interest-bearing bank account in Texland’s name. To find out payments were actually made from this account without Board knowledge and approval is extremely disheartening.”

Texland was a joint venture between PEC and Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative to create a lignite-powered generation project to supply electricity to the two cooperatives. The project was scuttled after the Public Utility Commission of Texas denied Texland’s permit to build the plant.