Export mayor breaks tie in contentious vote to raise sewage rates

Export Mayor Joe Zaccagnini had to break a 3-3 vote this week as council approved a $5 increase in local sewage rates, passing along a roughly 8% rate hike by the Franklin Township Municipal Sanitary Authority that goes into effect in August.

“We have to pass on the cost that’s been passed on to us,” Zaccagnini said in casting the tiebreaking 4-3 vote. Councilman Vince Harding was not present.

“The need is not there,” Councilman John Nagoda said. “We raised sewage rates $8 two years ago. We were supposed to take that away, and you voted not to — and now we’re going to raise it again?”

Council voted in 2020 to impose an $8 sewage surcharge to help fund improvements required by the borough’s long-term flood-control project as well as its mandatory participation in two state consent orders. Much of it went to monitors tracking the flow of sewage in the system, which had to remain in place three months longer than initially expected.

At the time, council members said the surcharge would be in place for a year. But when it came up for a vote in May 2021, council voted 5-2 to keep it in place. Nagoda and Harding voted to do away with the surcharge.

“This doesn’t mean we can’t lower it next year once we get things squared away,” Councilman Dave Silvis said of the new rate hike.

Said Nagoda: “You tried that last year, and it didn’t work. We said, ‘Once this goes away, we’re going to lower it,’ and that was a lie.”

FTMSA is imposing rate hikes as part of its work on the state consent order, which aims to eliminate inflow and infiltration in more than 330 miles of sanitary pipe. The authority is required to submit a plan to eliminate the issues by September.

The rate hike is $5.67 for residential customers, and the authority also is doing away with a $2 fee for residential customers who own a garbage disposal. With Export passing on $5 and absorbing the 67-cent difference, residential borough sewage bills will go from $55 to $60, according to council President Barry Delissio.

Nagoda said the borough already has money in its sewage account that could offset the rate hikes, and he did not understand why council did not want to use it.

Related:

• Export officials vote to keep $8 sewage surcharge in place

• Export officials: Sewage surcharge to remain in place for now

Borough solicitor Wes Long said the consent order also mandates that the borough fix any sizable defects in its system, work that is estimated to cost about $200,000.

“We have grade 4 and 5 defects that we have to fix,” he said. “We do have a substantial amount of money in the bank, as John appropriately pointed out. But we don’t know what the final ramifications of consent order will be, and I don’t think we should spend it down without knowing.”

Several communities that signed on to the consent order, including Export’s neighbor Delmont, expressed reservations about entering into an agreement without knowing what the final cost might be to fix it.

“Knowing we still have $200,000 in expenses coming before the consent order is done bothers me,” Zaccagnini said in casting his vote to approve the rate hike.

Nagoda and council members Melanie Litz and Joe Ferri voted against the hike.

“This town has turned a page, and now we’re going back in the wrong direction with this,” Nagoda said.

The rate hike will go into effect starting with August bills. FTMSA will meet next at 6 p.m. July 21 at the authority office, 3001 Meadowbrook Road in Murrysville.