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Youngstown plans to increase residential sanitation fees by 68 percent
YOUNGSTOWN
The city administration is proposing a 68 percent increase in residential sanitation fees to provide a steady funding source for demolitions and debris removal.
To offset almost all of that cost, the administration is seeking a 30 percent decrease in the monthly water bills of city residents.
“For our residents, the most important issue is they want to see more abandoned buildings and commercial structures come down and be cleaned up,” said Mayor John A. McNally. “In the end, people won’t be affected much by the [fee changes], and we’ll have a steady financial stream to take care of blight.”
The administration will discuss the proposal with council at a special meeting at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday in the council caucus room on the sixth floor of City Hall, 26 S. Phelps St. McNally said he’ll ask council to vote on the proposals at its next regularly scheduled meeting, Oct. 7.
The monthly sanitation fee for the city’s 22,000 residential garbage customers in the city is $14.75. The rate was dropped by $1 a month in January 2014 because a state audit showed the city was overcharging its customers for garbage removal.
Under the city administration plan, it will be increased to $19.75 a month starting Dec. 1, go to $22.25 on April 1, 2016, and to $24.75 on July 1, 2016.
The proposal to be considered by city council calls for the creation of a sanitation enterprise fund to use those fees to pay not only for garbage collection, but for the demolition of unsafe houses and commercial structures, to remove demolition debris, make other improvements and beautify the land after properties are taken down, McNally said. The city also could use the money for demolition equipment.
The sanitary increase would generate $2.64 million annually when fully implemented, which would allow the city to take down about 250 dilapidated structures a year, city Finance Director David Bozanich said. Also, the city estimates it would receive $300,000 to $400,000 a year in collections from property owners for demolitions, grass cutting and boarding up houses on their properties, he said.
The street department currently takes down about 150 structures annually, and there are about 100 private demolitions per year, Bozanich said.
There are about 4,000 vacant structures in the city in need of being demolished, McNally said.
“This will have a pretty significant effect on neighborhoods, said Bozanich. “At the end of the process, you’re going to have a dynamic change in the neighborhoods because vacant houses will come down. These have been huge crime magnets for neighborhoods – drug houses, arsons. It’s been so problematic.”
A city-requested legal opinion from Squire Patton Boggs states the Cleveland law firm was not able to “locate any case law or attorney general opinions” that restricts using sanitation fees for demolition and related purposes.
“In the absence of more clear guidance, it also seems reasonable for the city council to find that an unsafe structure creating a public nuisance is a sanitation-related health and safety concern, [and] the removal of which could be an activity funded out of the sanitation enterprise fund,” wrote Pamela I. Hanover of Squire to Bozanich in an April 1 letter given Monday to The Vindicator.
She also wrote that the law firm was “not aware of any city [in Ohio] that has created a sanitation fund and used it for [this] purpose,” and the city “would prevail if [legally] challenged.”
Over the last decade, the city has received special state and federal funding to help pay the cost of demolitions. But McNally said those funds are drying up and the city needs a consistent source of money to demolish vacant buildings.
So far this year, there have been 288 demolished structures with 35 more planned in the coming months, said Abigail Beniston, the city’s code enforcement and blight remediation superintendent.
The amount of demolitions in 2014 was 272, 530 in 2013, 424 in 2012, 306 in 2011, and 524 in 2010, she said. The years with the largest amounts of demolitions were when the city received state and federal money for that purpose, she said.
The administration also wants city council to consider a 20 percent homestead exemption on the sanitation fee for senior citizens and the disabled.
Meanwhile, the administration is asking city council to reduce water rates for its customers in Youngstown by 30 percent Dec. 1.
The average water customer in the city pays about $30 a month, Bozanich said. The reduction would save those customers – about 19,500 of its 52,000 total accounts are in Youngstown – about $9 a month to essentially offset the $10 sanitation increase.
“Not only will our residential customers see that reduction, but it will act as an incentive for businesses to be here,” Bozanich said.
The city is replacing water meters for all of its customers as part of a $6.69 million contract that will take another five years to complete.
There was no water increase this year, but there were annual 8.75 percent increases the previous five years. Before that, there were 10.25 percent increases in both 2008 and 2009.
The water fund had a $13.8 million surplus at the end of 2014, Bozanich said.
A $50,000 recently completed water study report by the PFM Group of Milwaukee, Wis., states the water reduction wouldn’t deplete the water fund until 2020.
The water-rate reduction does not include the rest of the city’s water department customers who already pay a 40 percent surcharge. Youngstown water customers are in Austintown, Boardman, Canfield township and city, Liberty, Girard, Mineral Ridge and Jackson and Milton townships.
The amount paid by water customers outside the city will remain the same, about $42 a month on average.
“Our water’s a bargain,” Bozanich said. “They’re paying the same rate they’re currently paying. We have a huge infrastructure in place. It would cost $1 billion to replace it.”
Also, the PFM report states that changing how the city bills its customers from 100 cubic feet to actual gallons would be more accurate and increase water revenue by about $1 million a year.