CAMDEN, S.C. — Camden City Council has approved an increase in their resident's electric bills. City Manager, Jonathan Rorie says the city has approved a 10% electricity increase and 5% fuel surcharge translating to 5 cents per kilowatt-hour that went into effect on July 1st.
Rorie says, "the city has kinda absorbed any kind of cost increases in our electrical and utility rates over the last 8 years, so we haven't had any rate increases since 2014, we just finally got to a point of where you can't do that."
Adding, "So we took a rate increase of 10% across the board for the base rate and kilowatt usage rates, unfortunately, that's not enough, because the second piece of the puzzle is now as gas prices in this case particularly natural gas prices are on the rise that means producing power costs more and therefore us to purchase power costs more."
Rorie says the fuel surcharge will fluctuate with the economy, "It will stay in place but it will go up and down with the economy so as fuel prices change natural gas up and down then this fuel charge rate can go up and down."
Residents can expect the charges when their next bill arrives.
