The Herald, Sharon, Pa.

Local News

December 16, 2008

Sharon sewer rates may be going higher than projected

By Courtney Anderson

SHARON — Sharon sewer rates will be going up next year but how much isn’t known, city sanitation authority President Bob Beach said Tuesday morning.

“It’s safe to say the citizens of Sharon will see a significant rate increase,” Beach said.

Just how much rates will increase will likely be decided at an authority meeting at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday.

In summer 2007, city officials set rates that would double most residents’ bills by 2010. That schedule, which raised rates about 8 percent for most users in 2009, was supposed to help fund the new sewer plant, at that time projected to cost $34 million.

The previously set increase may not be enough to meet costs, Beach said.

The hike is needed to cover debt for the $45 million sewer plant and to pad authority coffers because the delinquency rate on sewer bills is so high.

A more than 10 percent delinquency rate is a “major concern,” financial consultant Gary Rose said. It’s been an ongoing problem in the city.

“It appears collections are not keeping up with billing,” said Rose, who said he’s trying to get a handle on how much money is owed to the authority.

People not paying their bills put the burden on the authority to find money to pay its bills, which then puts a greater burden on citizens who are paying their bills, said Rose, who has been working for the authority for free for months and was hired Tuesday to work one day a week at $10,000 a year.

He suggested changing some procedures to better combat the delinquency rate and said those things can happen after the transition to the authority taking over the running of the plant in January.

Beach said a $106,000 underbilling earlier this year after rates weren’t raised until the spring did not affect this rate hike. City officials thought the authority would notify Aqua Pennsylvania of the increase when they took over and the authority thought city officials would because they were still handling day-to-day operations at a fee.

“Either way we’re getting a rate increase,” Beach said, noting that the $106,000 is being deducted from the purchase price of the sewer lines from the city.

New rates would be effective in January but would not show up on users’ bills until February, project director Guy Cunningham said. The authority will take over billing from Aqua in March, he said.

The authority is looking at a budget of about $4.4 million, but it hasn’t been finalized. The rate schedule is a final piece of the puzzle.

“We’re working with a lot of estimates and we’re trying to estimate conservatively,” Rose said.

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