The Utilities District of Western Indiana Rural Electric Membership Cooperative's board of directors terminated the cooperative's chief executive officer Thursday, following an internal audit investigating allegations of corruption.
In April, three candidates for the co-operative's board of directors ran on a campaign to address alleged misconduct and the electric utility's ranking as having the highest rates in the state in 2016. The election resulted in a sweep, with all three challengers taking seats. Board members voted in May to place then-CEO Brian Sparks on paid leave while the utility conducted a third-party financial audit.
Thursday's vote to terminate Sparks was announced on the UDWI REMC website early Friday evening. The search for a new CEO will begin immediately.
"Upon our review of the information from the internal audit, and after much thoughtful deliberation, we determined that Mr. Sparks did not fulfill management expectations for UDWI," the release states. "Mr. Sparks is relieved of all duties and responsibilities effective immediately."
Although the Federal Bureau of Investigation will neither confirm nor deny it is conducting an investigation into the UDWI REMC or any of its affiliated contractors, two investigators who were at the REMC's contractor Hoosier Heritage Management told The Herald-Times to contact Wendy Osborne, a spokeswoman for the FBI out of Indianapolis.
The Utilities District of Western Indiana Rural Electric Membership Cooperative, or UDWI REMC, serves 19,000 customers in Clay, Daviess, Greene, Knox, Lawrence, Martin, Monroe, Owen, Putnam, Sullivan and Vigo counties through a 1,500-mile transmission network, according to the cooperative's website.