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WARREN -- Trustees in Champion are not satisfied with an agreement made between Warren and Trumbull County for a 10-year sanitary sewer treatment contract and say it is not a 75-percent increase as previously reported, but a 145-percent increase of the bulk rate.
Trustee Rex Fee said Champion was left out of the negotiation process and he thinks the townships that are part of the Trumbull County Metropolitan Sewer District should have a say during future contract negotiations, as their residents will be affected.
The county never should have accepted the way the city wants to be paid for treating the waste the county sends to the Warren processing facility from customers in Lordstown and Champion, Fee said.
He added the city insisted this contract be calculated as a percentage of the rate Warren City residents pay, but Warren residents are paying for labor, pump stations, lines all around the city and other items necessary to run their sanitary sewer system.
County customers should only pay for the cost to treat what arrives at the station, which is tracked on meters, Fee said.
"Think of it like a can of beans: You pay for the beans you put in the cart, not 75 percent of the cost of the case," Fee said.
The former contract, which expired at the end of 2017, was calculated in a way that reflected the actual use of Warren's services the customers used, Fee said. A county and city official would break down what the county should pay based on what was processed and what equipment was used.
Ed Haller, director of the city's Water Pollution Control Department, said the old contract was "convoluted" and the new contract simplifies things. The question Champion trustees should be asking is why is the county charging its customers more than what the city charges them, Haller said.
But the new contract language designates the county pay for the bulk services as a percentage of the rate Warren residents pay.
"It only makes sense to pay the costs that are directly attributed to our usage," Fee said. "They are telling us we have to pay for 75 percent of the cost of infrastructure in the city that the county doesn't benefit from."
Haller said no user gets to pick and choose what part of the system he or she will pay for.
"Residents in the city of Warren don't have the luxury to pick and choose what costs of the system they pay for. The entire system relies on a singular cost spread out over the whole system," Haller said. "This agreement still isn't fair to the residents, but it is closer to fair than what it was."
The agreement, reached in March after a Trumbull County Common Pleas Court judge ordered the two sides into mediation, calls for the county to pay 75 percent of the city's inside rate -- which amounts to $3.48 per 1,000 gallons when the previous price was $1.42, a difference of $2.06, which amounts to a 145-percent increase, Fee said. The city wanted the county to pay 150 percent of the Warren residential rate initially.
"They want you to be confused," said Doug Emerine, Champion trustee.
The costs certainly will be passed on to customers, Fee said. And the estimates indicate the rates could go from $6.66 per 1,000 gallons to as much as $12 for customers in the district.
The idled General Motors plant in Lordstown is a county customer, and the county will need to account for that and upgrades to their own treatment plants in the district, Fee said.
The costs won't just be handed down to the residents in Champion and Lordstown, but to all of the customers in the sewer district, Fee said.
Gary Newbrough, Trumbull County deputy sanitary engineer, said the county tried to negotiate terms in-kind with what Fee wanted to see, but after two years of negotiating and a court case, the city wouldn't budge on the way the costs were tied to the inside rate.
The city claimed the county was getting a deal and paying something equal to about 30 percent of the inside rate for 20 years, which wasn't fair to Warren residents.
Haller said the county was getting a good deal for years, but most other treatment agreements between two governmental entities are structured in this way -- calling for the buyer of the services to pay a percentage of the seller's inside rate.
"Rex wants to keep it the way it was because it was financially good for him and the residents he represents. They were getting a very good deal and it was grossly unfair that way," Haller said. "This is a a little more fair to the residents of Warren."
Fee said the city calls it a "sweetheart deal" but "it worked for 20 years without any issues."
The county is going to conduct a rate study before determining how to structure the increased costs, which will be about an extra $1.5 million per year, Newbrough said. The county hasn't determined what rate changes are necessary yet, he said.
Fee, who worked for the sanitary engineer for several decades, said he understands why rates have to increase sometimes, but this doesn't seem fair and he said he thinks townships that are part of the district should have a say.
Haller said Warren, too, is likely to have to raise rates slightly and has been putting off a rate study until the negotiations with the county were complete. The city rates are very low, Haller said, noting the city needs about $70 million for plant updates.