City of Middlesboro officials want to save money on the city’s electricity bills, and they hope an upcoming street light audit will help with those savings.

At a special called meeting Monday, representatives with Kentucky Utilities made a presentation about a street light audit that is underway. Those lights cost the city a lot of money.

“The City of Middlesboro is paying about $200,000 a year for street lights; it’s about a little over $15,000 a month,” said Andrea Schroeder, KU’s manager of civic affairs.

She said company officials and Mayor Rick Nelson had discussed the audit previously, and KU got the process started.

“The mayor had reached out and we talked a little while back and we hit the ground running,” she said. “The process takes some time to do to pull all the records, the billing records, and they actually use online maps to get an idea of where the lights are located.”

Schroeder said auditors will drive the city streets and map where the lights are.

Councilman Bo Green asked if KU had a map showing their current locations.

“Currently we do not,” Schroeder replied. “We have a general idea of where these things are. The purpose of the street light audit itself is to determine and develop that map to be able to provide to the city.”

Schroeder said the audit workers should be in the city within 60 days.

Once the process is complete, the results will be compared with what the city is being billed for and any adjustments will be made accordingly.

“We will continue to look into other opportunities for savings and we will bring that back to you, Mr. Mayor,” Schroeder said.