Members of Jeannette's municipal authority board on Tuesday night unanimously approved a $22 million deal to sell the city's financially struggling sewer system to the Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County.

City leaders said the sale will immediately bring in $4 million and ultimately lower taxes for residents.

“As far as I'm concerned, these are unselfish acts,” Jim Broker, chairman of the City of Jeannette Municipal Authority Board, said following the vote. “Everybody here did this for the better of the authority and the City of Jeannette.”

County municipal authority officials on Tuesday disclosed details of the proposed purchase in which it will assume $18 million in debt and pay the city $4 million in cash. In return, the county authority, which supplies water to more than 400,000 residents in five counties, will provide sewer service to about 5,500 customers in Jeannette, Penn Borough and Hempfield.

The county authority already sells water to customers in those municipalities and bills for the Jeannette sewer system.

“This allows the city to get its head back above water and be responsible from here and moving forward,” said Jeannette solicitor Scott Avolio.

For several years, the city has teetered near bankruptcy, leading officials in December to raise the earned-income tax by 0.5 percent to balance a $6.2 million budget.

Avolio said the sale will enable the city to immediately make a $1 million payment to its underfunded pension fund, its biggest financial burden. Avolio said taxpayers could get a break because the newfound cash will enable council to eventually scale back the earned-income tax to 1 percent from its 2 percent level.

Avolio serves as solicitor for the county municipal authority, Jeannette's sewer system and the city. The city's authority board voted to seek independent legal counsel to review the final agreement on Avolio's recommendation. The other two bodies are expected to do the same.

Broker called the sale a “win-win situation.”

“This has been a rumor for years, and now we're able to do an evaluation and say, yes, it's worth turning it over to someone else,” he said.

The deal calls for Jeannette customers to continue to pay current sewage rates. Officials said the four-year rate hikes imposed by the city to pay for rehabilitation of its sewer plant will continue. The facility in Penn Borough will remain in use. No additional funds will be needed to operate the system, said county authority manager Chris Kerr.

The Jeannette system's nine employees will move to the county authority payroll.

Once the county authority's board approves the purchase at a meeting next week, the utility essentially will double its sewer business.

The authority has about 5,000 sewer customers.

Although it is principally a water company, the municipal authority moved into the sewer business about a decade ago. Its last sewer purchase was in 2008 when it acquired the White Oak municipal authority.

“This board thinks there is an opportunity in wastewater. We think it is an opportunity for growth,” said board Chairman Randy Roadman.

Staff writer Renatta Signorini contributed. Rich Cholodofsky is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 724-830-6293 or rcholodofsky@tribweb.com.

---

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)

---