The Herald, Sharon, Pa.

Local News

April 14, 2010

550 may lose water service

Panel pursues sewer delinquents

By Courtney L. Anderson Herald Staff Writer

SHARON — Another round of shut-off notices is on its way to Sharon sewer bill scofflaws, officials said.

Sharon Sanitary Authority President Frank Connelly said nearly 1,500 properties were on the list of delinquent accounts due to get letters saying water service would be cut off unless owners made arrangements to pay.

It’s another move in the authority’s continuing crackdown on debtors, authority Manager Guy Cunningham said.

“We don’t like doing this, but … we’ve got to do it,” Cunningham said.

Cunningham said 1,448 accounts were on the list, but after it was sent to water company Aqua Pennsylvania, only about 550 customers will get shut off if they don’t pay up in the next two weeks or so.

But Cunningham said he expects that number to drop as people come in and pay once notices get posted on doors next week.

Cunningham said about one-third of the properties on the longer list already had water shut off and service couldn’t be terminated at another third because the tenants are not responsible for the sewer bills — the landlords are.

If folks wait to pay, their accounts will be charged an extra $10 for the posting. And penalties and interest “keep adding up,” Cunningham said.

He said it seems like a lot of people just “totally ignore” the situation and don’t acknowledge the problem until legal action is taken.

Last month the authority sent letters to about 170 people, mostly landlords, warning that liens would be placed on the properties due to overdue bills, Cunningham said, adding that shortly after, 50 of those people came in and paid.

He mentioned someone who came in with 30 $100 bills. A debt of $3,000 at 1.5 percent interest would accrue $45 a month in interest alone, Cunningham said. That’s almost as much as the $54 monthly sewer bill.

Civil actions will be filed with the Sharon district judge soon against those who haven’t made arrangements to pay, Cunningham said.

All the liens and lawsuits cost the authority time, effort and money, Cunningham noted.

“We just want people to pay their bills,” he said. “We’re not ogres. We’re nice people. We’re just doing our jobs.”

Cunningham stressed that people who are behind should come and talk to him to avoid having their water turned off.

“We want people to get on a payment plan. It’s only the right thing to do,” he said.

He noted that there are people keeping up with agreements who won’t get off of them for two or three years because of the amount that’s been allowed to accrue.

And if the authority actually shuts the water off, it’ll cost an extra $65 to get it turned back on as they have to pay for a police escort and charges to Aqua, Cunningham said.

Pursuing delinquent accounts more aggressively appears to be working.

The authority took over collecting delinquencies in the fall and they’re getting payments on some of the big accounts but still have a high delinquency rate, Cunningham said.

“We’re getting there. We’re making great strides,” he said.

The authority sends out bills for about $440,000 in usage fees each month and in March they collected $586,000 thanks to the delinquency letters, Cunningham said.

At one point, the city and authority were owed about $1 million in sewer debt and a judge ordered the authority to release the names of debtors to The Herald after an eight-month legal battle over the records being made public.

The Herald in February published a list of more than 250 property owners who owed the authority more than $1,000 in back sewer fees. The top 10 account holders made up about 20 percent of the total owed.

The city has filed about 150 municipal liens for sewer fees in recent months, bringing the total amount of debt the authority or city has sought in court since 2005 to more than $350,000.

The results of the cases range from debtors ponying up the cash to people who don’t show up in court. In one instance, tenants will be getting papers from the Mercer County sheriff’s office saying their rent will now go toward the debt, Cunningham said.

“We’re going to be doing a lot of that,” he said.



There will be an open house at the new Sharon wastewater treatment plant from 10 to 2 p.m. May 22.

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