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Luverne’s utility questionMN Public Tools · independent, not a city publication
The recordLuverne, Minnesota

Sources and corrections

What each figure comes from, what is assumed, and what is still open. Updated September 24, 2026.

Primary records come first: audits, the amendment, city code, and state filings. Statements from the forum, letters, and news are attributed to whoever made them, never adopted as findings.

Which figures are verified?

FigureValueStatusWhere it comes from
Transfers, 2024$624,330Verified ✓2024 audit, page 51, Electric column, Transfers OutOpen
Transfers, 2025$261,675Verified ✓2025 audit, page 49, Electric column, Transfers OutOpen
EDA contribution, 2024$80,000Verified ✓2024 audit, page 51, Electric column, Contributions to component unitOpen
EDA contribution, 2025$80,000Verified ✓2025 audit, page 49, Electric column, Contributions to component unitOpen
Electric franchise fee, 2024About $380,000ApproximateCity MPA report 2025, page 7 (round figure; not itemized in the audit)Open
Electric franchise fee, 2025Not verifiedNot verifiedNot itemized in the 2025 audit; general fund electric + gas franchise receipts were $558,515Open
Electricity sold, 202574,106,536 kWhVerified ✓2025 audit, page 200, Kilowatt hours soldOpen
City levy, payable 2025$3,566,592Verified ✓Certified 2026 levies list, page 11, Luverne city, 2025 columnOpen
City tax capacity, payable 2025$5,541,025Verified ✓2025 audit, page 183, Table 7Open
City levy, payable 2026$3,789,392Verified ✓Certified 2026 levies list, page 11, Luverne city, 2026 columnOpen
City tax capacity, payable 2026$5,897,742Verified ✓DOR property tax history data, sheet CityTown, Luverne city, payable 2026, Taxable NTCOpen
Commission seats, terms, three-vote rule—Verified ✓Amendment §§ 2(a)–(d), 2(i), 4(a)Open

What does the calculator assume?

These are modeling choices, not facts about what would happen.

  • An illustrative owner-occupied homestead worth $250,000 (tax capacity $2259.50) using 900 kWh a month. Not a median; readers can change both.
  • Tax capacity follows the homestead market-value exclusion and class 1a rates (1% up to $500,000, 1.25% above).Minn. Stat. § 273.13DOR workbook
  • The city tax base is payable 2026: levy $3,789,392 spread on taxable tax capacity of $5,897,742, a city rate of about 64.25%. Only the city's share of the tax bill is modeled, before income-based refunds.
  • Lower rates are spread evenly across 2025 kWh sold. A real rate change could fall differently on different customer classes.
  • Electricity use, other utility costs, capital plans, and debt are held constant. The franchise fee is per kWh, so it does not change with rates.
  • Reduction amounts use audited 2025 transfers as a dated benchmark, not a forecast.

What is still being checked?

  • How shared salaries are split among funds. The budget says the general fund carries 37% of the administrator’s and clerk’s pay and the utility funds carry “varying percentages.” The percentages for each position and fund are not published, so the committee’s figure that 42% of the clerk’s pay comes from electric can’t be checked.
  • The electric share of finance, payroll, and technology charges. These run through an internal fund of about $640,000 a year that bills each department. The general fund’s share is listed; the electric fund’s is not.
  • The MRES line-crew contract. The budget describes the line crew as MRES employees under a contract of about $600,000 a year since 2004. The contract itself has not been found.
  • MRES’s current wholesale rate schedules. The power-supply contract is posted, but its rate schedules are not attached. Without them, what Luverne’s growth or peak demand adds to its MRES bill can’t be calculated.
  • Whether a commission triggers MRES’s 90-day notice. Section 9(d) of the MRES contract requires 90 days’ notice before the city transfers control of its electric distribution functions. Whether a charter commission counts is a legal question no public record answers.
  • The electric franchise-fee rate for 2025 and 2026. City Code § 55.17 says the per-kWh rate is set by council resolution. Resolution 52-23 set $0.0045 per kWh for 2024. The 2025 and 2026 rate resolutions (42-24 and 41-25) have no franchise-fee section and no repeal language, so whether that rate still applies is not shown by any record found.
  • The 2025 electric franchise fee. The 2025 audit books electric and gas franchise receipts together ($558,515). Until the electric share is found, 2025 total support is not shown.
  • The bond resolutions for the 2018A and 2022A electric bonds. The official statements describe the pledge of net revenues and the 125% coverage covenant but no limit on transfers. The resolutions themselves have not been read.
  • Authority for the $80,000 EDA contribution. Found only as a line in each year’s budget, which the annual budget resolution authorizes for that year. No standing agreement, policy, or EDA resolution was found in the city’s or the EDA’s posted records since 2023.
  • Any agreement behind the 2024 Childcare Facility Fund transfer. The 2024 audit shows $43,370 to that fund; the underlying document, if any, has not been found.
  • Two different electric franchise-fee histories. The city’s budget books list the electric franchise fee as $400,000 (2021), $400,000 (2022), and $450,000 (2023). The Municipal Power Advantage report lists $330,922, $337,918, and $338,140. Its 2024 figure, $380,000, equals the 2024 budget line. The records do not explain the difference, which is why the 2024 figure is shown as approximate.
  • The county’s certified payable-2026 city rate. The calculator uses the state’s payable-2026 taxable tax capacity ($5,897,742) and the state’s computed city rate (64.25%). Rock County’s own certified rate sheet has not been found to confirm it.
  • City tax capacity by class after tax-increment capture. The state reports tax capacity by class before tax-increment districts capture their share, and reports the capture only as a total. Table B uses the before-capture figures.
  • The full adopted 2026 budget. The city posts a one-page summary; the full document is available at City Hall.
  • The electric revenue reconciliation. The state filing’s class revenue ($8,527,049) is $421,897 above the 2024 audit’s electric sales revenue ($8,105,152). The franchise fee or sales tax would be about the right size, but neither is documented as the cause. Settling it would take the city’s 2024 electric revenue ledger and the billing summary behind its state and federal filings. Until then, no single Luverne price per kWh is shown.
  • Xcel’s current residential rates and riders. Confirm the currently implemented residential tariff revision and whether an interim adjustment remains applicable. Reconcile the selected billing month’s riders and adjustments before presenting a complete bill. The sheet used here took effect January 1, 2024; final rates were approved July 31, 2026, and we have not located and verified the implemented final tariff. The September 2026 fuel charge ($0.02448/kWh) and several riders are published. Until this is done, the Rates page shows Xcel’s base and energy charges only.
  • Monthly power-cost adjustments. Luverne’s schedule gives only the base cost that triggers its power-cost adjustment, not the amounts billed. Sioux Valley Energy’s schedules also allow a wholesale power adjustment; whether one is billed now was not confirmed.
  • Council resolutions behind the posted St. James rates. The St. James rate sheets are city summaries dated January 15, 2026. The resolution adopting them was not found.
  • Signed MRES contracts. The posted copies of the amended power-sale contract (approved August 25, 2026, effective January 2, 2027) and the reserved capacity agreement (approved February 14, 2023) are unsigned drafts. Signed copies and the August 25 minutes have not been posted.
  • Peer utility payments: rows withheld or limited. Hutchinson’s row is withheld. Its electric-only statements came from a bond offering document that returned “not found” when rechecked on September 24, 2026, no copy was preserved, and the city audit that is still online combines electric and gas. St. James, Granite Falls, and Windom use 2023 State Auditor data, which does not say which funds received the money; audited 2024 statements were not found online. Austin’s 2024 payment line is inferred from an unlabeled expense line, and no 2023 audit was found, so its 2023 cell is blank. Litchfield’s $100,000 transfer to other city funds has no stated purpose. The State Auditor’s 2024 data had not been published as of September 24, 2026.
  • Peer payment rules that sources describe differently. Hutchinson: a 2026 city budget describes 4.5% of revenue with a cap; 2021 commission minutes describe the 2018 resolution as 4.5% annual increases. Marshall: the audit describes a 10-year sales average; the 2026 agreement, a 5-year average. New Ulm: the charter says quarterly; the audit says monthly. Austin: the source of its rule was not found.
  • How amendment §§ 1(b) and 3(b) fit together. Both clauses speak to contracts, and neither says which controls. That is a question for the city attorney or a court.

What has been corrected?

Changes made in the September 24, 2026 revision.

  • The explanation of how utility money reaches the city was rewritten. Earlier pages said the commission alone would decide how much money was left for the city. The amendment requires the payment formula to be approved by both the commission and the council (§ 3(i)).
  • Commission membership was corrected. The council does not appoint two members “each year”: the city seat is the city administrator unless the council appoints one of its members (one-year term only in that case), and the large-customer seat has a three-year term.
  • The $332-a-year median-home figure was retired. It paired a 2024 total that included an approximate figure with a different year’s tax base. The household calculator replaces it.
  • The 2024 total support is now shown as about $1.08 million, not $1,084,330, because the franchise-fee part is a round figure.
  • The “who pays” comparison was replaced with two separate tables. The earlier version mixed 2019 federal class data with an estimated tax-base split and counted institutions twice.
  • The rates page’s profit comparison was taken down because it mixed accounting scopes between cities.
  • Statements that the amendment has “no conflict rules” were replaced with the precise point: it adds no rule specific to the large-customer seat, and existing law still applies.
  • The 2014 Hutchinson industrial-rate example was removed from public conclusions until a primary record is available. Hutchinson’s council veto (four-fifths vote within 30 days) is kept as a difference from Luverne.
  • The signed analysis was rewritten to engage the strongest case for the amendment. It no longer treats the cost of a general manager as a reason to vote no, because the amendment allows a contracted or shared manager.
  • Start here said the council keeps approval of contracts. That was too broad: the commission can make utility contracts, and council approval is required for specified matters, including new bonds, real-estate deals, and contracts longer than ten years (§ 3(b), § 3(f)).
  • The 2025 franchise-fee cell on Bills and city money displayed “$558” instead of $558,515 because of a formatting bug. Fixed.
  • The rates page no longer calls a 750 kWh bill “typical.” It is an example, not a measured Luverne average.
  • “Only another citywide vote” was corrected to “another charter amendment,” which Minnesota law also allows by unanimous ordinance on the charter commission’s recommendation.
  • September 24 audit: the peer-payment table had filled Marshall’s, New Ulm’s, and Austin’s 2022 and 2023 cells with 2024 values, and mixed transfers with expense payments. It was rebuilt on one measure with a year for every row; Hutchinson now uses electric-only revenue, and Luverne’s row no longer counts the EDA payment.
  • September 24 verification pass: Jackson’s row no longer counts its $121,001 transfer to debt-service funds (the electric fund’s share of its own bond payments), which moved it from 10.9% to 8.7%; the other rows count no debt-service transfers. Hutchinson’s 5.8% was withdrawn because the electric-only source could not be reopened. Each row now lists the payments counted and not counted.
  • September 24 audit: the bill comparison scaled average prices to 750 kWh and showed an estimated Xcel “all-in” bill of $131–135. It now shows base charge plus energy charge from posted tariffs, labeled as not complete bills, with Sioux Valley’s town and rural rates and St. James added.
  • September 24 follow-up: Luverne’s blended 2024 price had been hidden from the peer chart and the compare page while other utilities’ filings were shown as submitted. It is now shown as filed (10.76¢), with its federal customer count, and the kWh difference is stated in a note instead.
  • September 24 audit: Luverne’s 11.55¢ figure was withdrawn as a “reconciled” price. It now appears only as the explicitly labeled state-filing measure; the peer chart and compare page use Luverne’s federally filed 10.76¢, like the other cities, and disclose the unexplained kWh difference.
  • September 24 audit: growth figures were corrected. Customers grew about 1.6%, not 0.5%, and the earlier 9.49¢ starting price rested on an audit kWh figure larger than the power the city bought that year.
  • September 24 audit: the history page gave the MRES contract end as 2056. It runs through January 1, 2057; the approved extension to 2067 takes effect January 2, 2027.
  • September 24 audit: the description of the Kwoka (2002) study reversed its finding about industrial users. Corrected, with a note that it studied state regulators, not city utility boards.
  • September 24 audit: the capacity contract’s $2 incentive was described as applying to Luverne. The posted contract limits it to units commissioned after June 1, 2023. The 15–18-year payback estimate and the “$30 per meter per month” figure were removed.
  • September 24 audit: Buffalo’s page said no term of Luverne’s commission could change without a charter amendment. Several can be changed by ordinance or council action; the page now lists them.
  • September 24 audit: the sample of Minnesota utility bodies was expanded to 59 cities and is now listed by name.

Every document

130 records, grouped by kind.

City record (39)
Audited financial report (13)
City publication (8)
State Auditor data (9)
Federal energy data (6)
State record (5)
Statute / case law (13)
News reporting (15)
Letter / opinion (3)
Secondary source (19)