MIFFLINBURG — Mifflinburg residents expect to avoid a steep electric rate increase in 2010 because they’ve been paying incremental hikes over the past several years.

The borough has been buying electricity in bulk for decades and selling it to residents for competitive prices, manager Margaret Metzger said.

For the past few years, the municipality has purchased electricity from American Municipal Power Ohio.

“We offer our customers good service at competitive rates, very similar with PPL and Citizen’s Electric,” Metzger said.

But, instead of profits going to stockholders, she said, any money made remains in the community.

And the borough’s 2,200 customers are not expecting to get hit with a 35 percent or higher rate increase in 2010, like PPL customers, because prices have been raised incrementally in the past few years. Increases have varied depending on rate classes, but Metzger said the highest price jump was 20 percent.

Borough electric rates won’t be set until later this fall, but Metzger said she doesn’t expect they will rise that much.

Not all municipal providers have been reporting such welcome news.

Electric customers in one southeastern Pennsylvania borough are bracing for a 60-percent rate increase, according to The Associated Press. Perkasie, 30 miles north of Philadelphia, has locked in a new five-year wholesale contract with AMP-Ohio for $94.06 a megawatt. That’s up from $51.85 under the current contract with DTE Energy.

Borough manager Dan Olpere proposes hitting the average household using 1,000 kilowatts a month with an increase from $106 a month to about $170.

Olpere also suggests starting the increase in November to give the borough a cushion before the first new wholesale bill arrives in February.

Council member Harry McGonigal argues that a 60 percent increase is bad enough but imposing it just as the holidays are coming “is not looking out for the residents.”