SHARON — Sharon Sanitary Authority members Tuesday officially decided that they will handle running the wastewater treatment plant after the first of the year.

The authority unanimously voted to notify the city of Sharon of the move, authority Chairman Robert Beach said. For the past year, the city has been running the plant for the authority at an administration cost of $25,000 a month.

Beach said the authority is in the process of putting an offer in writing to a prospective project director to oversee the plant and collection system.

The 18-20 employees who work at the plant and on the sewer lines are members of the American Federation of School, County and Municipal Employees. Their contract with the city is up at the end of the year, Beach said, and the authority will be negotiating a new one. He said he didn’t know if the employees will stay with AFSCME or go with another union.

“Those issues have to be worked out,” Beach said, noting that they’ll be hiring more employees to run the plant, which has nearly twice the capacity of the old one.

“We’re planning on meeting with the employees in the very, very near future to explain what’s going to happen to eliminate some of their anxiety,” Beach said.

The authority has also notified Aqua Pennsylvania that they’ll be taking over sewer billing as of Jan. 1, Beach said.

Aqua has handled sewer billing based on water usage but their price per processed bill recently increased. Beach said using them would cost about $144,000 per year and the authority feels billing can be done much cheaper in house. He said details of how that will work are being worked out now.

Beach said that the authority has also discussed the possibility of going from a usage-based billing system to a flat-rate system with everyone being charged the same amount.

The switch would make billing easier, Beach said, as Aqua currently calculates the amount due for sewage based on how much water is used according to water meter readings.

“Some people will be upset” if the authority changes the billing structure, Beach said. He said that they’re discussing other ideas, including a coupon booklet sent out at the beginning of the year.

“We’re trying to be the fairest to everybody but everybody isn’t going to think that,” he said, adding that they would try to figure out a range that would be fairest for low and high users.

Sewage rates were raised last year and a schedule set for increases through 2010. The rate hikes were made to keep up with what would be needed to pay for the $27 million bond issue taken out to build the plant. The city also received a $15.7 million PENNVEST loan.

Beach said the project could cost as much as $46 million with engineering fees and a contingency fund.

“We had no choice but to build a new plant,” Beach said, indicating an order issued more than five years ago by the state Department of Environmental Protection. “And we have to pay for the plant.”

Beach said the authority is investing $300,000 of it’s cash in a money market account so it will earn more interest.

He said an underbilling of $106,000 earlier this year due to confusion over whether the authority or the city would notify Aqua of rate increases was still being worked out with the city. Rates should have gone up the first of the year but didn’t until the spring.

Another issue that’s not been resolved is a new member for the authority, which is down one person.

Currently the authority has four members, as former member and county commissioner Brian Beader resigned in July.

Votes last month by the authority and city council to appoint former city council president Fred Hoffman to fill the seat has not been confirmed by Mercer County Commissioners.

The county’s approval is needed because the commissioners backed the bond issue to pay for the new sewage plant.