Ephrata residents shocked last month by soaring electric bills might see some relief.

At its nonvoting meeting Monday, borough council laid out steps to deal with more than 2,000 customers whose February power bills doubled and even tripled.

Under an ordinance that will be voted on at council's March 9 meeting, higher rates would be applied only to electricity that was known to be consumed after a 40 percent rate hike went into effect Feb. 1.

Customers who were billed at the higher rate for power used before Feb. 1 would see a credit on their next bill.

Council president Robert Good said action was "necessary."

"What we're doing in this resolution is absolutely the right thing to do," Good said. "The intent, certainly, is to help to relieve the financial burden that these people have incurred through the billing process, and put parameters in place so that this doesn't happen again. Hopefully the people of Ephrata will be happy with this decision"

The ordinance also limits the time span over which electric meter readings will be estimated in cases where meter readers can't get to the actual meter.

Meter readings will not be estimated beyond three months prior to or two months after any future rate increase.

Last month, thousands of borough residents opened their electric bills to find significant increases.

Monthly bills that had been $200 or $300 jumped to $500, $800 and even $1,000. The spike was caused by what borough officials have called a "perfect storm" of a planned 40 percent rate hike, many estimated meter readings because of a shortage of personnel because of vacations and an extra-cold January that threw off those estimates.

Borough hall was inundated with visits and phone calls from angry customers, and last week more than 150 residents attended council's municipal enterprise committee meeting, asking questions and demanding action.

Starting with bills due out this week, customers will see a credit for any power they used prior to Feb. 1 that was billed at the higher rate on their last bill.

The power they used since the last billing also will be charged at the pre-Feb. 1 rate, even though some of it was used after the rate hike went into effect.

That's because the borough's software used to compute billings cannot differentiate what was used before or after Feb. 1, said borough manager Gary Nace.

"That group will then be taken care of, both from the rate perspective and the credit perspective," Nace said.

In addition, when the next batch of bills goes out in a week or so, if any power was used in January, the entire bill will be computed at the prerate-hike price.

Crediting customers will cost the borough $730,000.

Good warned residents that the "revenue sources for the borough are relatively flat." The borough's only means of raising funds for operation and improvements is through real-estate taxes, fees for services and permits and sale of electricity.

"If you lose a significant amount of revenue to the borough, citizens also must be smart enough to understand there are certain things that can't be done," Good said.

Resident Nanci Reese argued that she did not consider refunds for electricity billed at a higher rate but used before the rate hike to be "lost revenue."

"I consider that revenue that should not have been attributed to the borough to begin with," she said.

Councilman Daryl Horning asked council also to extend the 60-day payment requirement for electricity into the summer months, if need be, for hardship cases.

"If we extend that into June or July, when their electricity use would go way down, maybe they could get caught up better," Horning said.

Good asked the municipal enterprise committee to look at the budgetary effect of Horning's suggestion, "since the borough still has to pay for the electricity."

It was also suggested that council make budget plans available to residents. Nace said these plans are evaluated every four months and can be adjusted up or down if consumption changes.

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