ARTICLE X

FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS

SECTION 1. Contracts

Except as otherwise provided in these bylaws, the board of directors may authorize any officer or officers, agent or agents to enter into any contract or execute and deliver any instrument in the name of and on behalf of the Cooperative, and such authority may be general or confined into specific instances.

SECTION 2. Checks, Drafts, Etc.

All checks, drafts or other orders for the payment of money, and all notes, bonds or other evidences of indebtedness issued in the name of the Cooperative shall be signed by such officer or officers, agent or agents, employee or employees of the Cooperative and in such manner as shall from time to time be determined by resolution of the board of directors.

SECTION 3. Deposits

All funds except petty cash of the Cooperative shall be deposited or invested from time to time to the credit of the Cooperative in such financial institution, cooperatives chartered pursuant to the Rural Electrification Act of 1936 or entities such as the Rural Electrification Administration or National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation which make below-market interest rate loans available to Rural Electric Cooperatives, as the board may determine. To the extent possible, consistent with advancing the cause of Rural Electrification, the Cooperative shall request bids on the placement of its funds in an effort to obtain the highest return thereon. Further, to the extent possible all funds which are retained in financial institutions within the Cooperative's service area shall be offered to all such institutions within the service area on a nondiscriminatory basis.

SECTION 4. Changes in Rates

Written notice shall be given to the Administrator of the Rural Electrification Administration of the United States of America not less than ninety (90) days prior to the date upon which any proposed change in the rates charged by the Cooperative for electric energy becomes effective.

SECTION 5. Fiscal Year

The fiscal year of the Cooperative shall begin on the first day of January of each year and shall end on the thirty-first day of December of the same year.