Local News
Who didn’t pay: Landlords top list of sewer scofflaws
SHARON — A long-sought list of Sharon’s sewer bill deadbeats reveals that the bulk of the more than $1 million in unpaid fees is owed by landlords and nearly a quarter of all accounts are delinquent.
More than 250 property owners owe Sharon Sanitary Authority at least $1,000 and the worst offenders owe tens of thousands of dollars, according to the list provided to The Herald by the authority under a judge’s orders.
The top debtors, whose back bills account for more than 10 percent of the total owed, are:
• Joseph and/or Sandra Toth, $51,554 on 21 properties.
• Anthony Mineo, $35,541 on 11 properties.
• Kimberly Cagle, $33,569 on 14 properties.
The top ten delinquent accounts total $200,340, or about 20 percent of the total owed.
The authority has more than 7,000 accounts; as of last month, bills were delinquent on more than 1,700 properties, or about 24 percent.
As of Monday, the authority was owed $1.04 million and the city’s reported uncollected debt was about $280,000, Authority Manager Guy Cunningham said.
In reviewing the list of delinquent accounts, The Herald checked back to summer, when the initial request to review the records was made. Between then and February, the debt was paid down on seven accounts with more than $1,000 owed, including an apartment complex and six individual properties. Those debts totaled about $11,000.
Among The Herald’s findings:
• About 400 of the delinquent accounts were identified by the authority as being for properties owned by landlords, but there are many more. Officials have said about 30 percent to 40 percent of Sharon’s homes are rentals.
• About 85 owners on the list are banks or companies that appear to hold titles in mortgage foreclosures. Their delinquencies total about $65,000.
• About 1,200 of the 1,700 or so delinquent accounts are for amounts less than $1,000; of those, 500 are for less than $100, which is about two months of sewer bills.
Customers with payment arrangements who are keeping up with them are not considered delinquent by the authority and were not on the list given to The Herald. Cunningham said about 140 accounts had current agreements as of last week.
Last fall, the authority began to pursue delinquencies itself rather than turning them over to a collection agency. The authority’s crackdown has increased collections, but not enough to outpace the amount owed by deadbeats.
More than 1,000 shutoff notices went out at the end of November, stating customers would have their water service turned off for failing to pay sewer bills. Two Sharon officials were in that bunch, authority records show.
Council member Robert Messina, 470 Carley Ave., received a letter in May stating he owed a total of $356 to the authority and Sharp Collections, the agency that formerly handled delinquent accounts.
That bill was paid in full on June 8, but in November the authority sent a second letter to Messina that water would be shut off to his home on Dec. 18 unless arrangements were made to pay $231 in fees owed to the authority since July. Messina paid that debt Dec. 16.
A message left for Messina was not returned.
Sharon school director Sandra Hoover’s home at 160 Bentley Ave. was also on the initial November shutoff list. The sewer bill is in her husband Brian Hoover’s name and they owed the authority $230 as of Nov. 24. The amount was paid Dec. 7.
The Herald was unable to contact Mrs. Hoover for comment. No one answered several calls to her home and there was no option to leave a message.
Cunningham explained some further complications in determining who owes what:
• Razed buildings – Some properties where the house has been torn down may still be on the list if the authority wasn’t notified. Cunningham said staff is working to identify those properties and the board will decide whether to write off the debt.
• Names on the accounts – By law, whoever owns the property is liable for the sewer bill, but prior to the formation of the authority in late 2007, some bills were put in tenants’ names, Cunningham said. Some accounts could also still be listed in the name of a person who has died or a prior owner if the authority wasn’t notified of the change.
• Disputes – Cunningham said some users claim they’re being incorrectly billed. Those disputes are dealt with on a case-by-case basis and unless they’ve been resolved in the customer’s favor, their names are on the delinquent list, he said.
• Bankruptcy – “Just because someone files bankruptcy doesn’t mean they get away with it,” Cunningham said. The authority can lien the property, though it most likely won’t collect until the property is sold.
The authority can only pursue debt for six years after it is due unless a municipal lien is filed. Those liens are good for 20 years and attach to the property.
The city has filed more than 100 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 city or authority had filed only 17 liens between 1994 and September, when 70 claims were filed. Most of those have been paid.
The authority filed another 80 claims on Dec. 31 and has filed civil lawsuits against several debtors.
City and authority Solicitor William J. Madden has said that the city relied on Sharp to go after delinquent accounts. No one seems to know exactly how much sewer debt the city may have written off over the years.
Behind the numbers
The Sharon Sanitary Authority created a new billing system and account database when it took over billing last March from Aqua Pennsylvania. At that time, authority members noted a high delinquency rate and a number of scofflaws not paying their sewer fees.
Because the total was so high, The Herald began seeking the list of delinquencies and eventually filed a formal request for the list under Pennsylvania’s new open-records law, which took effect in January 2009.
The authority refused to make the list public, despite a ruling from the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records, and appealed to Mercer County Common Pleas Court. Last month, a judge agreed with the Office of Open Records and ordered that the list be released.
The list was released to The Herald last week; the total owed in the delinquent accounts, including penalties and interest, was about $840,000 as of Feb. 4.
That figure includes the most recent bills, which are not yet due, and some payments may have been processed by the authority since today’s publication of names, Authority Manager Guy Cunningham noted.
The list in The Herald also does not include customers who are making good on payment arrangements with the authority, but those who have defaulted on those agreements are considered delinquent and included on the list.
The list being published includes delinquents with totals of $1,000 or more.
The information in the list came from the Sharon Sanitary Authority. Any questions or disputes should be addressed to the authority at 724-983-3232 or 724-983-3250.
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