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Mayor wants city to pay for more water studies
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Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams
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Youngstown finance director David Bozanich
By DAVID SKOLNICK
YOUNGSTOWN
The mayor will ask city council today to pay $75,000 to a Cleveland company that’s already getting $92,000 for an unfinished study of Youngstown’s water- distribution system and its rates.
The city hired the PFM Group almost two years ago to do the study that was to include an estimated cost of expanding the water system into Campbell and Struthers.
The additional money would be used to prioritize the city’s water capital- improvement projects, identify locations in the system that need increased water pressure and study the possible expansion of the system, said Mayor Jay Williams and city Finance Director David Bozanich.
When asked Wednesday about Campbell and Struthers, Williams would say only, “We’re always looking for future expansion possibilities.” Bozanich declined to comment.
There is no timetable for completing the additional work, if council approves the legislation, Williams and Bozanich said.
In June 2008, when the city hired PFM, Bozanich said the study should be done in three to four months.
As for the delay, Bozanich said Wednesday that “it’s engineering work. Engineering takes time. It’s a complex issue.”
Williams added that “we’re continuously broadening the scope of the work.”
The last study of the city’s waterlines was done about 25 years ago.
With the study not finished, city officials approved raising water rates by 8.75 percent annually for five years. The rate increase began Feb. 1.
The city’s plan for capital improvement includes various waterline-replacement projects, a water-tank replacement, new meters and major valve replacements totaling more than $33 million.
The city paid $100,000 to PFM for a study of potential joint-economic- development district agreements with Austintown and Boardman.
That study was supposed to take only a few months. It was released in March 2008, more than 18 months after it commenced.
The proposal went nowhere because of opposition from trustees in the two townships.
The proposal called for Youngstown to impose a 2 percent income tax on current and future businesses in the townships that receive city water. The townships could have added their own 0.25 percent income tax on those same residents.
The city would have cut in half the 40 percent surcharge on Youngstown water in the two townships.
The study claimed $439 million could go to the city and the townships over a 20-year period.