Record low temperatures last month sent natural gas prices soaring to record highs for Scribner residents.
City leaders decided to do something about that, approving $93,000 in relief.
“We already had 82% of our volume bought ahead of the vortex, meaning our price was locked in at about $3.50 a (metric million British thermal unit),” city administrator, Elmer Armstrong said. “The bad news is, when we were running low, we had to buy some on the spot at about $210 per mmBtu for four of the five days when we experienced the coldest week. This was painful, as it cost our city an extra $101,000 of natural gas.”
Had the city not bought volume ahead, it would have meant an additional $260,000, on top of the $101,000, according to City Councilman Joe Wolfgram.
Scribner’s Economic Development Director, Elizabeth Valla, lives in an 1,800 square-foot home. Her February bill would have typically been about $570 with these cold temps but with the shortage in gas, the bill jumped up to $970.
This is just one example of what all the Scribner residents would have seen across the board. This would have also thrown off the customers on budget for 2022, raising their monthly plan an average of $30 a month.
“COVID happened then Christmas, and now we hit everybody with a huge utility bill, it just didn’t seem right or fair,” Scribner mayor Ken Thomas said. “Our residents are our greatest asset, they need to know we’ll take care of them.”
City leaders quickly called an emergency council meeting the same day the bills were supposed to be mailed out. After running all the numbers, it was unanimous, they would dip into the city’s reserve funds to give utility customers $93,000 in relief.
“We are paying for this out of the city’s reserve fund, which essentially is the taxpayers’ money,” Wolfgram explained. “The council has developed a plan to repay this money in the upcoming years by using profits from our new electrical generation plant.”
Bill Lindley, owner of Clayton Energy, who is responsible for buying, transporting, and delivering Scribner’s natural gas, along with 55 other communities, said, unfortunately everyone in the area saw their February bills double.
Lindley also said, what the council did for the residents isn’t something every municipality can offer.
“I think what they did for the city was outstanding,” Lindley said. “That’s the great benefit of having your own municipal.”
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