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Girard: New meters have nothing to do with water rate increase
By jeanne starmack
girard
Residents will see a water rate increase, but the city service director wants it clear that’s not because water meters were replaced.
Service Director Jerry Lambert said residents were told the replacement project would not result in higher rates, and that is true.
He said the increase will occur because of increases passed on to Girard by suppliers. He said the city has not decided yet how much the rate will rise.
Girard gets its water from Youngstown, Niles and McDonald, who get their water from the Mahoning Valley Sanitary District.
Youngstown is increasing Girard’s costs by 8.75 percent. Niles is increasing costs by 12 percent. McDonald is not increasing costs at all.
Lambert said Girard was expecting Youngstown’s increase because it is part of Youngstown’s five-year capital-improvements plan. Those yearly rate increases went into effect in 2010.
Niles, however, gave no warning it would increase costs, Lambert said.
He wrote to Niles Service Director Neil A. Buccino, who wrote back to say the increase is due to an increase in costs passed on to Niles from the MVSD and also operations costs.
The MVSD is raising rates 2.41 cents a gallon per thousand gallons of 24 million gallons a day, said its chief engineer Tom Holloway. He said a typical water user would see each bill go up by 12 cents.
Lambert questioned whether Niles’ operations costs warrant the increase to Girard.
Buccino said the last increase passed on to Girard’s water customers was in 2008.
He said Niles has been absorbing increases since then.
He described operational costs as wear and tear on trucks, wages and benefits, costs to buy new pipes and fittings and water main breaks.
Lambert said Girard budgets for operations and absorbs costs instead of passing them on to residents.
“We’ve never really actually asked the citizens to fund capital improvements,” he said.
“Not even $1.5 million for new meters,” he continued. “We were able to save the money to do it without asking for more money.”
“Our people will pay more for [Niles’] operational costs,” Lambert said. “We’ve eaten 2- to 3-percent increases over the years, but 12 percent is too much to eat.”
The city’s water meter replacements are almost finished, Lambert said.
He said the new meters can be read by a computer from the street. Workers will be able to read 6,000 meters in one day instead of about 3,000 meters in six weeks, Lambert said.