BASA prepares coming budget; legal fees in question
BUTLER TWP — The Butler Area Sewer Authority is not planning to raise rates for its 2024-25 budget, but inflation and uncertain legal fees have added to its projected expenditures for the year.
Sewer authority directors reviewed the budget Tuesday, June 11, which included about $14 million in expenditures — an increase of about $600,000 from the 2023-24 budget.
BASA executive director Duane McKee said inflationary costs are responsible for some of the increased expenditures.
“As far as major impacts to the budget, the first of course being inflation, we did account for up to 7% inflation in some areas,” McKee told the board. “We have a one-year contract with the bargaining unit, so we weren’t sure what the new contract will bring as far as wages. Health care is always an issue, as well as worker’s comp, insurance, those are on the rise.”
The sale of the BASA assets to Pennsylvania American Water for $230 million has been approved by the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, but an appeal by Center and Summit townships has held up its closing. McKee said the litigation was taken into account when the budget was drafted and that projected expenses for legal fees for the year were increased.
“Not knowing when the appeal is going to be done, we’re not positive of that yet,” McKee said.
The 4 inches of rain the Butler area experienced April 2 and 3 caused 24 overflows in the BASA system — a situation that repeated a week later, when 21 systems overflowed from rainfall on April 11 through 15.
McKee said many of the overflows happened in the southern service area, which is south of Butler down to Vogel Road, and the western region, in the area of Greenwood Drive and Benbrook and Bryson roads.
According to McKee, the western area is already scheduled for maintenance through a Corrective Action Plan that has been in the works since 2019. Herbert, Rowland & Grubic is the engineering firm for the project, and McKee said Tuesday the upgrades are related to pump stations in the affected areas.
McKee said the amount of rain falling consistently prevented workers from completely emptying the pump stations before they overflowed. He said upgrade plans are in the works to address pump station issues.
“When you have that much rain, when you have a weakness in your system, it finds it,” McKee said. “We got those two so close together. The pump stations work effectively to a point, and then they were filled, and then the next rain event came so quickly we didn’t get them emptied entirely.”
