Critics warn of higher bills if Akron sells sewer system

Although similar plans exist around the country, the city will have to work to make it a reality.

AKRON (AP) — The mayor’s proposal to sell the city’s sewer system to private investors and use the money to help high school graduates pay for college will lead to higher utility rates, critics said.

Mayor Don Plusquellic, in announcing the idea Thursday, said he wants to raise more than $100 million.

A group that represents wastewater agencies says if the sale goes through, water bills will go up.

“If it’s in private hands, they will come in and raise rates,” said Susan Bruninga, spokeswoman for the National Association of Clean Water Agencies. “They not only have to respond to their customers — you and I — but to their shareholders. There’s a profit motive there.”

The idea breaks new ground for cities. Although similar plans exist around the country, the city will have to work to make it a reality.

Akron’s plan surprised about 200 managers of water and sewer systems at a conference in Phoenix that the national group sponsored over the last few days, Bruninga said.

Although several communities, including Indianapolis, Milwaukee and Atlanta, have hired private companies to run water and sewer systems, managers at the conference could not think of any large municipalities that sold the systems or leased them outright.

Julius Ciaccia, manager of the regional sewer district covering Cleveland and 60 suburbs, said “there’s no way” a private company could keep rates down, recoup its $100 million-plus investment and still make money.

“It’s counterintuitive,” he said. “It just can’t happen.”

Plusquellic said the plan is a concept. The sewer system is not officially for sale, and he did not identify any interested buyer. But he said the plan could attract people to buy homes in Akron because of the long-term education benefit of their children.

Plusquellic wants profits from the sale to pay tuition and fees for residents to attend either the University of Akron or a trade school in Akron. Students would have to apply for other financial aid, which would be used before the city scholarships take effect. Akron city schools graduate more than 1,500 students a year.

The plan would not allow students to use the scholarships at other state-supported schools or private colleges.

He said the concept is partly modeled after one in Michigan, the Kalamazoo Promise, in which high school graduates in that city get their college tuition and mandatory fees at a public college paid from a trust fund set up by philanthropists and local businesses.

Students must attend Kalamazoo Public Schools all four years of high school to qualify. Those students have 65 percent of their college tuition covered.

Unlike Akron’s proposal, the Kalamazoo plan is not limited to colleges within Kalamazoo. Plan administrator Robert Jorth said about 65 percent of scholarship students attend Western Michigan University and the community college in Kalamazoo.