Jefferson County Water and Sewer District Director Jonathan Sgalla, right, explains why rate hikes for all their customers were unavoidable.

STEUBENVILLE — Minutes after approving rate hikes for the cash-strapped Water & Sewer District, Jefferson County Commissioners had to front the department nearly $252,000 to cover an upcoming sewer bond payment.

Commissioner Jake Kleineke said bailouts like that are one reason the hikes were necessary, noting it’s not the first time the county’s “permissive debt” funds have been used to pay bills that the enterprise funds should cover.

“It’s ironic that the day we had to raise rates we also had to bail the sewer department out with permissive tax funds,” Kleineke said. “That’s the magnitude of the problem we’re having with all of this. We have these debt service payments coming due, and debt service has to be paid before payroll — that’s the law in Ohio.”

During Thursday’s meeting, commissioners increased minimum billings for all residential, commercial, and industrial customers.

On the water side, the minimum bill for residential customers with three-quarter-inch meters will rise $10 per month to $44.80 for the first 2,000 gallons; one-inch meters, $76.01 for the first 5,000 gallons, a $17.54 increase; two-inch meters, $190.93 for the first 12,000 gallons, a $44.06 increase; four-inch meters, $384.59 for the first 24,000 gallons, an $88.75 increase; and six-inch meters, $772.77 for the first 48,000 gallons, a $178.33 increase.

All water customers will pay $12 for every 1,000 gallons over the minimum, a $2 increase.

On the sewer side, the minimum bill for residential customers with three-quarter-inch meters will be $73.48 for the first 2,000 gallons, a $26 increase; one-inch meters, $80 for 4,500 gallons, an $18.46 increase; two-inch meters, $148.29 for 9,600 gallons, a $34.22 increase; four-inch meters, $638.37 for 46,200 gallons; and six-inch meters, $947.67 for 69,300 gallons, a $218.69 increase.

Sewer customers will also pay $12 for every 1,000 gallons above their minimum, a $2 increase.

Director Jonathan Sgalla said a “significant effort was spent analyzing” both water and sewer expenses “to keep the necessary rate increases to a minimum.”

Budgets for both departments are barebones, he said. The water budget covers “only purchased water, system maintenance and repair, and existing debt payments.” The sewer budget covers “sewage pumping and treatment, purchased sewage treatment, system maintenance and repair, failed pump replacements, and existing debt payments.” Sgalla said the increase “accounts for funds needed to make it through the year without any significant system catastrophes or equipment failure.”

The county manages “300 miles of waterline, 18 water tanks, nine booster stations, countless system valves, and thousands of fire hydrants, all exceptionally expensive to maintain,” Sgalla said.

“Our water loss across our five systems is at an all-time high,” he said. “With each passing day, more water is purchased and lost into the ground. This loss will not stop until the aging waterlines are replaced.”

He said the sewer system is similarly strained, overseeing more than 20 wastewater lift stations, 11 collection systems, and eight treatment plants, three of which were failed subdivision plants turned over to JCWSD by the Ohio EPA. “The vast majority of our sewer assets are well past their useful life,” Sgalla said. “Regulatory changes designed to protect public health and the environment put further strain on system finances.”

Arcadis Engineering consultant Andrew Dawson said employees were routinely “working 20-plus hour shifts” in harsh conditions.

“That’s not 20 hours straight at a desk with a nice cup of coffee,” he said. “It’s 20 hours in the freezing cold at 1 a.m., doing physical labor, with water spraying from gaskets, smelling sewage, and getting fecal matter on their clothes… and there’s still not enough staff to do what needs to be done.”

Before the vote, commissioners said they had no other option.

“We’ve got to stop the bleeding, that’s how I feel,” Commissioner Tony Morelli said. “Talk about the can getting kicked down the road all these years… well, here it is. A lot of this mess, in my opinion, is because no action was taken in the past.”

Commissioner Eric Timmons said it’s “the right thing to do. If not, we’re going to be in trouble.”

“I want this place to be better for my kids than it is for us,” Timmons added. “You’ve got to make the hard decisions sometimes.”

Kleineke agreed, saying without the rate hike, “Our customers are going to walk up to the faucet and not only will water not come out, there won’t be employees or fire hydrants.”

Commissioners said they also did not want to rely on permissive tax money to cover the sewer district’s debt. Using existing funds could cover the debt service but leave insufficient money for payroll.

“We’ve all said it more than once, ‘We don’t want to do that again, we’ve said it over and over again. But we had to do it today, and the only way we can do it lawfully is because we have designated some of that permissive money for debt purposes,'” they said.

Meanwhile, the Ohio EPA is still pressing them to take over the failing Warren water system. Commissioners said that won’t happen without significant financial assistance. Residents in those communities face nearly daily line breaks.

“The only reason that we might have a possibility of getting some money for Amsterdam is because we took that stand,” Morelli said.