Lucas County sanitary engineer Director Shaw presented a proposal at the Board of Commissioners’ second public hearing on revising water and wastewater rates, recommending a 4% annual increase over four years beginning Oct. 1 to support system repair, replacement and operations.

Shaw told commissioners the county’s water and wastewater enterprise fund serves only customers in the Lucas County service area and is governed by the Ohio Revised Code. He said the system has aging infrastructure, rising costs and ongoing debt that require new revenue. “We have about a $20,000,000 budget in the water and wastewater system,” Shaw said, and later: “Any revenue that’s generated from water and wastewater is required to be used for water and wastewater in the Lucas County System. So no.”

The county presented sample monthly impacts based on usage. Shaw said the office also recommends adjusting trunk-capacity fees for new connections; examples cited in the presentation included increases “from 200 to $400” for the water-system example and a sanitary sewer example “from a thousand to 1,200.” Jerusalem Township’s quarterly connection charge was shown rising from $113 to $120 ($40 per month) in the slides. Shaw said the recommended schedule would produce incremental revenue for operation, maintenance, repair and replacement through October 2028 under the four-year scenario.

During public comment, resident Renee Ford, identifying herself as a landlord, said the increase would hurt low-income tenants and asked about the winter sewer average. “This increase is going to hurt them,” she said, and warned removal of the winter sewer averaging could penalize community gardens and properties that return water to the ground. Shaw and staff responded that Lucas County still uses winter averaging in its billing, unlike the City of Toledo, and offered to follow up privately to determine whether the cited properties are inside the county system.

No formal action was taken at the hearing. Commissioners closed the session and reiterated a third and final public hearing will be held June 24, 2025, at Springfield Township Hall, 7617 Angola Road, Holland, Ohio. The county’s notice said the hearings were published in the Toledo Blade as required by the Ohio Revised Code.