Baldwin — The high cost of electricity Baldwin had to purchase this summer will be passed on to customers over the next year, according to a proposal.
The average residential customer here will pay an extra $11.50 per month on their electric bill for the next year, under a proposal discussed Wednesday by the utilities committee of the Baldwin City Council.
The charge would go toward paying off the high cost for electricity in July and August.
The city's bill is $300,000 more than normal for those two months.
"It will basically be like 13 payments over a 12-month period," city administrator Larry Paine said.
The utilities committee reached the consensus that customers should pay off the surcharge based on their per-kilowatt usage.
Thus, entities that used large amounts of electricity such as Baker University and the Baldwin school district will pay a much higher share of the cost.
Paine estimated that Baker's share would be more than $38,000 and the school district would pay more than $11,600.
The $300,000 in additional charges occurred in late July and early August, when the city was forced to pay up to $2,000 per megawatt-hour for power -- 40 times the normal price of $50 per megawatt-hour, Paine said.
The city generates about 5 megawatts of power per hour but had to purchase an additional 2 megawatts an hour to meet demand.
City officials had considered "rotating blackouts" as an emergency measure to prevent costs from being any higher, but the crisis subsided before the blackouts were implemented.
"Unfortunately, there's no way of rewarding those who cut down," said council member Lee Whaley.
The city was forced to pay the high prices for power after fire damaged an electrical plant operated by the Board of Public Utilities (BPU) in Kansas City, Kan.
BPU had to purchase additional power for cities such as Baldwin.
But city officials didn't know they were paying such high prices until a few days after they skyrocketed.
Baldwin's interim utilities director Terry McKinney said that although there is no guarantee that the city wouldn't have to face such problems next year, he said that BPU now is required to notify the city of the price of power it is selling, on an hourly basis.
The city council has final say on the payment plan discussed Wednesday night.
The council will take up the matter at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Baldwin Public Library.
-- Michael Dekker's phone message number is 832-7187. His e-mail address is mdekker@ljworld.com.
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