Staff photo / Ed Runyan.... Mahoning County commissioners, from left, Anthony Traficanti, Carol Rimedio-Righetti and David Ditzler interact at their meeting Thursday.

NORTH JACKSON — It’s becoming more clear why the Mahoning County commissioners want to get out of the water business.

Commissioner David Ditzler said the reason commissioners and the Mahoning County Sanitary Engineer’s Office are having a public hearing July 7 on whether to sell the Jackson Milton Metro Water District is the district has been losing about $600,000 annually in recent years.

A recent evaluation of the water district by the Youngstown Water Department says the district is $5.5 million in debt and needs to double its rates to its 1,350 customers in Jackson and Milton townships “to generate sufficient income to support a reasonable return on investment.”

Ditzler said the Jackson Milton Water District is the county’s only water district, which he said means the county is “not in the water business. We’re in the sanitary (sewer) business.”

The Jackson Milton Water District, run by the Mahoning County Sanitary Engineer’s Office, has only a couple of full-time employees, Ditzler said. By comparison, the sanitary engineer provides sanitary sewer service to about 40,000 homes and businesses. The county maintains sewer lines and wastewater treatment plants to remove and treat sewage for those 40,000 customers.

Ditzler said it’s clear is that whoever runs the Jackson Milton water district will have to raise rates.

“The (rates) have not gone up in a long time, and they pay about half of what everyone else in the county pays for water,” Ditzler said of customers in the Jackson Milton Water District.

The district has customers along Mahoning Avenue in Jackson Township, as well as some additional customers a short distance north and south of Mahoning Avenue on state Route 45 in North Jackson. It also serves an industrial area at Mahoning Avenue and Bailey Road in Jackson Township.

The water line extends from there west into Milton Township, where it travels around most of Lake Milton, serving those residents and businesses, and serves the village of Craig Beach.

NECESSITY

The commissioners approved a resolution June 2 declaring it “necessary to sell the Jackson Milton Metro Water District Public Water System.”

County Administrator Audrey Tillis said the purpose of the resolution was to set the July 7 public hearing and to obtain public comments regarding the possibility of selling the water district.

Tillis said if the county decides to go forward with selling the district, the county will go out for bids from organizations that wish to become the new operator.

Attempts that week to reach Mahoning County Engineer Pat Ginnetti to discuss the reasons for the potential sale were unsuccessful. Ginnetti is the elected county highway engineer, but he is also the appointed county sanitary engineer.

When Ginnetti was reached Wednesday, he referred questions about the reasons for the potential sale to the county commissioners, saying: “It’s a commissioner-run department, so they make the call on that type of thing. It’s a little out of my pay grade.”

Tom Frost, president of the Jackson Township Board of Trustees, said he expects the July 7 meeting to provide some information because he does not know much about the reasons for the possible sale of the water district.

He said the Jackson Township trustees were notified a couple months ago that the commissioners were considering selling the water district. “But I really haven’t heard any more. We don’t have a say in that anyhow. We don’t own it. The county owns that.”

CONSUMERS

Ditzler said Thursday the commissioners believe that because the county has just that one, small water district, it may not be in as good of a position to work in the water-delivery business as a larger organization.

He referred to the Youngstown Water Department, as well as Aqua Ohio, another large water supplier in the area.

“So our thought process is there are only about 1,500 customers. It would be better for the consumers if the cost (increase) was spread over 100,000 customers, and not 1,500.”

The Youngstown Water Department serves about 52,000 homes and businesses and has 72 employees, according to a document the city provided to the county commissioners this spring. Youngstown receives water from the Mahoning Valley Sanitary District and distributes it to about 165,000 people in the city of Youngstown as well as the townships of Austintown, Boardman, Canfield and Liberty and sells bulk water to the cities of Canfield and Girard.

Aqua Ohio serves 158,200 homes and businesses in 20 counties in Ohio serving 22 municipalities and 47 townships including approximately 23,000 customers in Mahoning County, said Jennifer Johnson, Aqua Ohio area manager, whose office is in Struthers.

The Youngstown Water Department submitted a detailed proposal to the county commissioners March 25 that provides an evaluation of the Jackson Milton Water District, including descriptions of the condition of the Jackson Milton Water District’s two water towers and an evaluation of the water district’s finances.

PRICE TAG

The Youngstown Water Department offered to buy the Jackson Milton Water District for $4.5 million but noted that the district has an “outstanding debt” of $5,520,000.

The cover letter on the proposal states that selling the water district to Youngstown would benefit Mahoning County residents because Youngstown already serves 52,000 water customers, including “many customers outside of the city limits.”

It adds that “any purchaser of the water district will undoubtedly have to raise rates,” and the Youngstown Water Department would raise rates “gradually, transparently and responsibly with the rate payers in mind.”

The proposal says Jackson Milton water customers pay $5.25 per 1,000 gallons of water for the first 30,000 gallons per month and an additional $4.50 monthly fixed rate.

Youngstown charges $7.54 per 1,000 gallons of water for Youngstown customers and $10.55 per 1,000 gallons for customers outside of the city, the proposal states. Youngstown also has a minimum monthly bill of $11.32 for Youngstown customers and $15.85 for customers outside of Youngstown.

The proposal states that “as a courtesy,” Youngstown would charge Jackson Milton water customers the Youngstown rate for water for the first three years.

The proposal states that the rate for Jackson Milton customers in 2022 through 2024 would be $7.54 per 1,000 gallons per month and $10.55 per 1,000 gallons starting in 2025. That would be an average monthly cost of $33.93 per month to start and $47.48 per month starting in 2025.

The proposal states that Youngstown would invest about $2.3 million over the next five years to upgrade equipment used in the Jackson Milton water district. The city also “sees benefit in completing the southwest loop around Lake Milton from standpoints on both system maintenance and customer growth,” the proposal states.

AQUA OHIO

Aqua Ohio also provided the county commissioners with a proposal after the commissioners issued a request for proposals Feb. 16, 2022, but Johnson told The Vindicator in an email she would not provide the newspaper with a copy because it “could put us at a competitive disadvantage.”

Mark D’Apolito, an assistant Mahoning County prosecutor, responded to a Vindicator public records request in April for the Aqua Ohio proposal by saying the county would not release it.

He said the reason is that the county commissioners were “actively engaged in a potential bid process and fact finding mission” and the documents had to remain private “until such time that the Board of Mahoning County Commissioners has awarded a contract or determines that a sale of the system is not in the best interest of the stakeholders.”

He noted that the potential bidders “are free to release the documentation as they feel appropriate.” Youngstown released its proposal to The Vindicator.

COMMISSIONERS

On Thursday, after the regular county commissioners, meeting, all three commissioners were asked as a group to discuss the reason for wanting to sell the Jackson Milton Water District.

Commissioner Anthony Traficanti said one reason is that the district “has been running in the red. Like Dave (Ditzler) said, we’re not in the water business, and I think the residents will be better served with somebody who is a professional utility that knows how to run it, whether it is the city of Youngstown or Aqua Ohio.”

He said larger organizations “can spread that cost over a larger customer base, thereby reducing the rates for residents.”

Commissioner Carol Rimedio-Righetti cautioned that numbers in the Youngstown proposal are preliminary. “After the public hearings, they have to come in and do the bid process,” she said.

When asked why the commissioners did not start raising rates earlier to address the annual deficits, Traficanti and Rimedio Righetti said the COVID-19 pandemic was a factor.

Ditzler said the sanitary engineering department had discussed rate increases, but the discussions, which tied in both water and sewer rates, “kind of masked identifying the specific costs.”

Ditzler he is “a little taken back” that the rates were not increased “over the years because you need to gradually” raise the rates. “It’s pretty obvious that (the rates) need to be brought into line to keep the (water district) in operation.”

Traficanti added, “We recognize what the issues are now, and now we are dealing with it.”

erunyan@vindy.com