Girard residents to see water rates go up by 8 percent

February 7, 2012 at 12:01a.m.

By robert Guttersohn

Girard

Lost in the joy at the city’s Jan. 30 fiscal commission meeting, when the city petitioned the state to move it from fiscal emergency, was the state auditor’s recommendation that Girard raise water rates by 8 percent this year.

The increase would ensure the water department stays in the black for the next five years, said Tisha Turner, a representative from the Ohio Auditor of State’s Office.

In January, the water department had to borrow $175,000 from the city’s general fund to keep it in the black, a move the city plans to pay back by next year.

Since that meeting, Girard Mayor James Melfi has been in the process of imposing the hike. He said the increase will be reflected on the next bill in March.

The current rates for Girard water are $7.46 per 1,000 gallons for under 10,000 gallons of use. After that amount, the city provides a discount to $6.73. For customers outside Girard, it charges $10.44 below 10,000 gallons and $9.42 for every 1,000 gallons above that amount.

After the new rate is imposed, the initial rates for Girard residents will go up 59 cents per 1,000 gallons and 84 cents for customers outside the city. That means a Girard resident who now pays $50 every two months would see a $4 increase for water only, excluding sewage rates, which are on the same bill but not being increased.

Melfi said the city of Youngstown, part of the Mahoning Valley Sanitary District along with Niles and McDonald — from which Girard purchases its water — has increased its rates 20 percent over the last five years.

“I really had no choice but to impose it,” Melfi said. “We are at the mercy of the MVSD.”

Jodi Stoyak, a Liberty trustee and a township resident who pays for Girard water, sympathizes with Melfi with regard to the MVSD.

She said because much of the Valley’s water comes from the Meandor Reservoir, Mahoning and Trumbull counties’ leaders should sit down and discuss a more regionally fair system of providing water to residents.

Because of the current way in which water is distributed to municipalities, Liberty residents who are provided water from Girard pay 80 percent more than residents of cities that make up the MVSD and 40 percent more than Liberty residents provided water from Youngstown.

“I think it’s ridiculous, and I don’t think it’s fair,” Stoyak said.