STEUBENVILLE — City officials are hoping to get the Ohio EPA to reconsider Steubenville’s Class IV water plant operator licensing requirement.

City Manager Mike Johnson said Tuesday they’ve begun the process “to have our water plant reclassified as a Class III plant.”

“I believe it is vital to be considered a Class III plant to ensure we can retain qualified operators to run (it),” he said. “It is also a matter of fairness, as Steubenville should not be treated like Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland when it comes to plant classification.”

In Ohio, surface water plants designed to produce more than 5 million gallons of water a day (MGD) are rated Class IV. Steubenville’s plant, designed to make 6 MGD, is currently rated Class IV — the same as a city like Cincinnati, which produces 132 MGD for its 300,000-plus residents and is also rated Class IV.

City officials say it doesn’t make sense.

“In Ohio, a Class IV water operator is the highest certification level mandated for operators of the state’s largest and most complex water treatment plants, often found in major cities like Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland,” Johnson said after the meeting. “Steubenville is currently required by Ohio to have a Class IV operator for its water plant even though it is significantly smaller in size and water production compared to (those other cities).”

Because Class IV operators are scarce in Ohio, they’re in high demand and, as a result, command top-dollar salaries in the marketplace.

“Due to the lack of Class IV operators in (the state), once an individual obtains a Class IV certification, (that) individual is highly marketable and Steubenville is unable to compete with big metropolitan cities in terms of salary,” Johnson said. “Thus, if a Steubenville employee obtains a Class IV certification, that individual is likely moving on to a bigger city at a significant increase in salary.”

Steubenville Water Superintendent Jim Jenkins has a Class III certification. If he were to pursue his Class IV certification, “Why would I stay in Steubenville if I can go make three times my wage in a larger city?” he asked. “So Steubenville would be back in the same situation, over and over again.”

He said that’s why they’re “going to be discussing (it)” with Ohio EPA in hopes of reverting to Class III status.

“Currently with our Class IV requirement, it puts us in competition with large cities in Ohio to pay Class IV rates of pay (like) Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati,” he said. “Steubenville cannot financially support this classification’s pay rates long term.”

In other business:

— Councilman Royal Mayo told council the city needs to re-evaluate its comp time policies and recalculate what’s owed to employees. Mayo said public employees at the local level can accrue up to 240 hours of compensatory time off, after which any overtime worked must be paid at time-and-a-half.

“The law says once you get to the limit (240 hours) they have to be paid,” he said. “Once they’re at their limit, you have to pay them. A person can’t have comp time accruing for two years, you have to pay them.”

— Johnson reported a tentative agreement with the city’s AFSCME employees. It must be ratified by the union and approved by council. Council met in executive session Tuesday for an update.

— Council sunshined emergency legislation authorizing the water department to use “various vehicles … no longer fit for duty” as trade-ins on newer models, and authorizing the city manager to sell four vehicles and a tractor with a trailer from the recreation department.

— Volunteers and city employees who helped remove in excess of 40 bags of trash from the backyard of a house on S. Fourth Street were thanked for their efforts, including Johnson; Public Works Director Bob Baird; Patrick McLaughlin; and Donald Springer.

— In the wake of a recent school bus-sedan collision, Engineer Mike Dolak said that “soft controls” would be introduced at the intersection of Fifth Street and Logan. Dolak said in all, there have been seven crashes at the intersection in the past three years.

“When you evaluate the intersection, we looked at speed, we looked at volumes and we looked at crash history,” Johnson said.

— Johnson said he’s in the process of obtaining quotes to board up the old cosmetology store, telling council it’s “very dangerous, the roof has caved in.”

“We want to board it up and make it look nicer and for safety,” he said.

— Johnson also reported new Parks and Recreation Director Donald Patterson will be starting work May 11. Patterson has 10 years’ experience in the field and has been parks and recreation director for Barberton, Ohio, since 2021.