WARREN — City officials are considering an increase to water rates as well as adding a monthly service charge to combat higher department costs.

During a water rate study presentation, officials from the consulting firm Black and Veatch presented a plan to city council’s water / water pollution control committee that would raise the monthly inside rate for the current customer with an average 4,000 gallons from $22.24 to $25.69.

The presentation also discussed implementing a service charge, which would be $2.75 for customers with a 5/8-inch meter, which is the most common size. The service charge for outside-city customers with the same meter size would be $4.13.

The total monthly Warren inside rate would increase from $22.24 to $28.44.

Also included in the graphic was a section that showed “annual revenue increase needed,” which stated 15.5% in 2024, 11.5% in 2025, 8% in 2026, 7% in 2027, 5% in 2028 and 5% in 2029.

Water Department Director Franco Lucarelli said the city has not had a water rate increase since 2016.

“We’ve done our best through the years to try to mitigate any rate increases,” he said. “We’ve come to a point where we no longer can put off the inevitable.”

Warren services 19,800 water accounts. It maintains more than 300 miles of water pipes and has one water treatment plant, pumping 12 million to 13 million gallons of water per day. The city pumps water to Cortland, Leavittsburg, Lordstown, Howland and Warren Township.

Warren’s water department has more than $58 million dollars in assets, which include the treatment plant and water mains.

“Those assets need to be maintained,” Lucarelli said. “They need upgrades when needed and they need to be maintained on a daily basis.”

Prabha Kumar, a director with Black and Veatch, said labor, chemicals, supplies and energy costs in the water industry have undergone a “big change” since the pandemic.

“The kind of costs that we were seeing for chemicals, supplies and energy before the pandemic is a little different than what we saw during the pandemic and what we’re seeing now,” Kumar said. “What really happened is during that time, due to the pandemic and the supply chain and all of those issues, chemicals, supplies and energy costs, those all went up.”

Kumar said those costs are not increasing at the same rate as before, but they have not come down to where they were pre-pandemic.

“Whatever cost increases we saw during the pandemic level, that has become the new baseline,” she said.

Kumar’s presentation also noted the need to fund over $30 million in infrastructure capital improvements over the next six years.

On a breakdown of what $1 would support in fiscal year 2024, the consultants listed 80 cents for operations and maintenance costs; 12.5 cents for cost of equity; 4.2 cents for infrastructure rehabilitation cost; and 3.1 cents for utility resilience reserve.

If the rate increase goes into effect, Warren’s average total monthly charge per 4,000 gallons of $28.44 would be less than several Ohio municipalities including Youngstown, $30.45, Niles, $28,84, and Akron, $29.36.

The consultants pointed out Warren’s potential new $2.75 service charge per 4,000 gallons would be less than all of the municipalities they compared it to including Niles, $9, and Youngstown, $18.32.

Lucarelli said Warren’s water department “runs efficiently,” but that the increase in operation and maintenance prices have led to discussions of the rate increase.

“Had it not been for the pandemic, we were in a really good financial situation with $4 million in cash sitting there,” Lucarelli said. “To have those numbers go up from $56,000 to $250,000, from $500,000 to (over $1 million), no matter how efficiently we’re trying to run, there’s only so much you can do when costs of materials and supplies go up like that.”

Lucarelli said in Warren, the rate increase has to be approved by the safety / service director.

He said the increase could go into effect as soon as June 1 with the new rates being seen on customers’ July utility bills.