VIDALIA — Utility costs went up for Vidalia consumers this summer, a move officials said they were obligated to do.

The increase raised the cost of utilities by approximately 20 percent.

Vidalia utilities consumers now pay $0.11 per kilowatt-hour, while the city purchases the utilities at approximately 10.7 cents per kwh.

“The cost of utilities to the city went up 73 percent,” City Manager Ken Walker said. “We would have been selling it for cheaper than we were buying it.”

“We held it to an absolute bare minimum,” Walker said.

The average cost to the city for providing utilities to the citizens is approximately $600,000 a month, but for the months of June and July that cost was between $1.1 million and $1.2 million, he said.

The city was also able to use reserve funds from the hydroelectric plant to keep the increase down, Walker said.

Not making that adjustment would have put the city in a legal dilemma, because it is against the law for the city to offer services at less than they pay for them, Mayor Hyram Copeland said.

The cost increase was passed on to the city from its utility provider, the Louisiana Energy and Power Authority.

“We have been faced with the highest gas and oil prices in the history of our country,” Copeland, who is a member of the LEPA board, said.

The price of oil and natural gas has fallen somewhat from its peak in July, but it will take between 30 and 60 days for that to be reflected in the market, Copeland said.

For the time being, the city has implemented some cost-saving efforts, which include limiting the use of city-owned automobiles and not entering purchase orders until they are truly necessary, Copeland said.

“I’ve also told everyone to set all the thermostats in every city-owned building to 80 degrees,” he said.

“We haven’t received a lot of criticism for the rate increase,” Copeland said. “I don’t think a lot of people were surprised.”