Thousands of people in Trumbull County now have higher water rates. The county commissioners approved the hike at their meeting Thursday along with some plans to try and clean up the sanitary department's budget in the future.

Anyone who gets water from the county will now pay $11.75 per thousand gallons.

Residents were previously paying between $6 and $10 dollars.

“It's a huge hit, believe me,” Tony Bernard, Trumbull County Commissioner said. “I'm not for that but here's the bottom line: they broke the fund.”

The sanitary district officials say they can manage a healthy budget with the new rate and not fall into the red. The commissioners say they will reassess the rates in one year.

“I believe we’ll end up with increases from our bulk water suppliers throughout the next year. So, I think in a year the 11.75 rate will have to be higher just based on cost increases from our suppliers,” Bob Maiorano, Controller of the Trumbull County Sanitary District said.

The sanitary department was hoping for a rate of $12 to break even with their budget. Commissioner Bernard was the first to suggest the lower 11.75 rate based on older studies on where the rates should be.

“They didn’t show me a justification,” Bernard said about the higher rate the sanitary department wanted. “It was just somewhere in the middle that we met.”

Maiorano said roll over money and money coming in from an additional replacement improvement fee will make up for the 25 cent loss.

It's the first time in ten years water rates have gone up. The county has been losing money that entire time because the bulk water cost from the suppliers have gone up but they never passed that increase onto the customers. The department was set to fall into a deficit in May if a rate increase was not approved.

“I believe politics have been in play for the past ten years in not raising these water rates bringing us to today,” Rick Hernandez, Trumbull County Commissioner said.

The commissioners also approved forming an advisory council made up of members from each township or city that gets water from the county so they can have input on future rates.

“I think by having more eyeballs on the process it's going to take out favoritism, it's going to take out any political pressures of ‘keep this community less, charge this community more, there's more voters here, less voters here’,” Denny Malloy, Trumbull County Commissioner said.

“The rates have not been raised in ten years, that is playing politics…that is looking for the vote,” Hernandez said. “We shouldn’t be running county business determined by who we can get votes from.”

The board will have seven members and will meet quarterly to look at the water rates and operations.

The sanitary district will also have a personnel audit within the next year from the state to see if it's running as efficiently as possible. Commissioner Malloy said the audit will be paid for by the county and it's expected to cost around $2,800 based off of other audits they have done recently.

“Lets just make sure that they’re operating the best that they can and they’re making the cuts that need to be made before we pass it onto the consumer,” Bernard said.

Maiorano said the sanitary department welcomes the audit.

“That's just good governance to have somebody look at us and we'd be willing to make any adjustments that were found by the state,” Maiorano said.

Maiorano added that they believe they have done all they can to cut costs in their department. Other engineers previously told 21 News there is “no fat to trim.”

New rates start Thursday and will be reflected on the bills that are sent out on April 10 which are due on April 30.

Cities and townships with their own water systems will not be affected.