VIDALIA, La. – The Vidalia Board of Aldermen voted Tuesday to raise utility rates for Vidalia homes and businesses starting next month due to the rising cost of energy production.

Minimum rates for natural gas will rise $4 per month; electricity, $1.76 a month for businesses and $1.68 for homes; and water and sewer service, $6.67 a month. Sanitation rates will go up $1 a month for residential customers and 15 percent for businesses.

&uot;We realize this will place an extra burden on the citizens of Vidalia, … but we have no other choice,&uot;&160;said Mayor Hyram Copeland.

&uot;We hope the public will understand and work with us.&uot;

If the town does not raise rates, it would face an estimated $970,000 deficit next year, mainly due to the rising cost of natural gas, he added.

And if the town’s Utility Department does not &uot;break even,&uot; Vidalia cannot qualify for Louisiana Community Development Block Grants.

Those grants bring in $700,000 to $1 million to the town every two years, said Town Engineer Bryant Hammett.

While the area’s Louisiana Hydroelectric plant makes power using the Mississippi River, that power is sold to other areas.

Vidalia, in turn, buys its power from elsewhere — and much of it is made using increasingly expensive natural gas, Copeland said.

He said the town is going to cut next year’s budget, which will be approved at the board’s Nov. 14 meeting, by 10 percent and has put a permanent hiring freeze in place to help minimize rate hikes.

Department directors are also being told to get almost all invoices approved by Copeland, town Comptroller Kenneth Davis and/or the alderman who oversees the department in question.

In addition, natural gas prices will be reviewed every three months to see whether gas rates can be reduced accordingly, Davis said.

Vidalia last increased rates in 1997, when the minimum monthly water rate went up more than $3. Electric rates went up 8 percent in 1987, and sanitation rates went up almost $5 in 1993.

According to figures compiled by the Vidalia Economic Development Office, the town also has some of the lowest electric rates in the state among towns of comparable sizes.

Later in the meeting, Hammett said the town’s drainage and street improvements should be complete by late spring or early summer. Plans for the drainage project, which will be completed first, should be finished by Oct. 21.

Aldermen voted to advertise for bids to replace an aging dump truck. They also approved occupational licenses and signs for Sylvia’s Fit for You and Kathy’s Quick Service 2000, which will both be located at 1620 Carter St.