This page provides current response measures planned or activated for Southern Public Power District.
Safety is the greatest of priorities at SPPD. As such, we have taken measures in response to COVID-19 with the health and safety of our employees and customers in mind. All of our decisions and measures are formulated based upon information obtained from the Center for Disease Control (CDC), local health departments, federal, state and local officials, and our own Board of Directors at SPPD.
OFFICE CLOSURE-SOCIAL DISTANCING
Effective March 19, all offices are closed to the public–our corporate office in Grand Island, as well as service area offices in Central City, Franklin, Funk and Hastings. Our office buildings are only open to employees. No visitors are permitted, including employee family members, or vendors. Delivery personnel, review instructions in the section below. No exceptions will be made.
BILLING/CUSTOMER SERVICE
For now, we will continue to provide customer service for billing, service requests and other business by way of telephone (800-579-3019) or email (customerservice@southernpd.net), or our online payment portal. You can also pay via phone with a credit/debit card (Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American Express), or pay with a checking or savings account.
If you are a customer who is accustomed to stopping into any of our offices to pay your bill, you will need to drop your payment into the drop box. You are also welcome to consider paying your bill with our SmartHub app: CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP.
SERVICE/OUTAGE REPORTING
The service you have come to expect in response to outages will continue to be provided. As always, outages must be reported by calling 800-579-3019. We encourage you to be ready to provide your service information. This can be readily accessible by keeping a copy of your current bill statement, all of the information to identify your service location can be found there. For other service needs, please contact us by telephone at 800-579-3019.
VENDORS, DELIVERY PERSONNEL
No vendors, delivery personnel, equipment repair staff will be allowed in our buildings. We do have a procedure in place for receipt of material delivery, and we encourage these companies to contact us ahead of a scheduled delivery so we can inform you of our procedure during this time.
FUNK OPEN HOUSE POSTPONEMENT
We are postponing our plans for an open house at our new Funk Service Center, which was scheduled in April. This measure has been taken to accommodate recommendations recently stated by Governor Pete Ricketts, discouraging events with attendance numbering greater than 10.
FUTURE BOARD MEETINGS
We are giving careful thought to our next board meeting, as well as those through the duration of this pandemic. We will comply with measures recommended by health departments and public officials, while abiding by Nebraska Open Meetings Laws. We will share that information as our plans come into place.
OTHER PLANS IN PLACE
Because we are committed to the health and safety of our employees and customers, we have also outlined other precautions internally:
- We are practicing social distancing between our various office facilities. While we are continuing to respond to customer outages, we are limiting exchanges between our own office locations.
- We are encouraging our employees to conduct business with customers over the phone and email. We are restricting the practice of off-site meetings or other measures that do not demonstrate social distancing.
- We will continue to monitor the recommendations of the CDC, local health departments, elected officials at the federal, state and local level as we consider how long these measures will be in place, and if they need to be revised.
- We will continue to communicate these practices with our customers, and encourage followership on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for announcements. This web page will be updated as warranted.
We thank you all for your patience with these new practices. We encourage you all to pay attention to reliable information shared with the CDC and local health departments.
Above all, stay well.
