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Youngstown council to consider hiring a firm to serve as the city’s collection agency
YOUNGSTOWN
City council will consider legislation today to authorize the hiring of a firm to serve as Youngstown’s collection agency for demolition work, mowing grass, delinquent water bills and property maintenance code violations, among other things.
Mayor John A. McNally is sponsoring ordinances to allow the board of control to sign two contracts with Millstone and Kannensohn, a Liberty law firm specializing in collections.
“We want people to cut their own lawns so we won’t have to do it in the future,” said Nicole Billec, an assistant city law director who helped negotiate the contracts. “We want this to act as a deterrent.”
The first contract would pay Millstone $60,000 between March 1 and Feb. 29, 2016, to handle all notices and collections of money related to grass cutting, lot cleanups and boarding building services done by the city.
The city expects to more than make up that amount, Billec said.
The other contract with the firm is to collect on delinquent accounts for unpaid water bills, demolition expenses, property maintenance code violations and administrative penalties.
That contract calls for Millstone to get 30 percent of whatever it collects and is for a year, starting March 1, with a one-year mutual option.
Millstone handles demolition collections for the city without a contract and had handled delinquent water- bill payments for the city in the past, Billec said.
Also today, McNally is sponsoring legislation asking council to permit the board of control to sign an agreement with the PFM Group for up to $50,000 for a water-rate study.
The work is in advance of a $14 million project to replace all of the city water customers’ meters starting later this year, said McNally.
PFM’s study would analyze the impact converting water billings from per 100 cubic feet to 1 cubic foot or 1 gallon, assess the feasibility study of reducing the cost of water bills for senior citizens, and potential changes to bulk water customers.
“We want to make it easier for taxpayers to understand water bills, so we are considering going to a cubic foot or a gallon,” McNally said.
The study would determine if a discount for seniors “can be afforded and the financial impact it would have,” McNally said.
The mayor referred comment on bulk-water changes to Water Commissioner Harry L. Johnson III, who couldn’t be reached Tuesday to comment.
PFM has conducted two other water studies for the city, including a $100,000 report that recommended in March 2008 that Youngstown work on a Joint Economic Development District plan with Austintown and the portion of Boardman that receives city water.
The plan would have provided revenue sharing among the three with an income tax of 2 percent to 2.25 percent on those who work in Austintown and Boardman and receive city water.
The backlash from the townships was so great that the proposal never went anywhere.
After that, the city paid $167,000 to PFM for a study that looked at expanding Youngstown’s water system into Campbell and Struthers and an overall of its water-distribution system.
In late 2010, about two years after it began, the study determined the city could provide water to Campbell and Struthers, but the two communities opted to not move ahead.
PFM, which has offices throughout the country, also put together “The Youngstown Plan” in September 2012 for $250,000. The plan provided more than 50 recommendations to overhaul city government operations, though only a few have been implemented.