BUTLER TWP — The Butler Area Sewage Authority Wednesday approved a $1 per month rate increase to help cover the cost of building seven stormwater storage tanks.

That raises the rate to $30 per month of sewer service for a residential household. The new rate takes effect Sunday.

BASA last July implemented a $2 rate hike, and there will be another $2 raise in 2013, for a total of a $5 increase over three years to cover the authority’s debt service. Board member George Shockey pointed out at the BASA meeting Wednesday that the original estimate of rate increases was $8 per month.

“To have everything settle out at $32 is the result of someone working hard to keep costs inline,” he said.

But two years of construction and the money spent on the authority’s projects still is a concern for board member Mike English.

The type of tanks built for a stormwater retention project, the company picked to built them, and Chester Engineering, the authority’s long-time contracted engineering firm, are all sores that refuse to heal for English.

He decided to make the argument again that the tanks are wrong, and that, in his opinion, Chester Engineering is responsible for the mistake.

English’s recent public re-airing of the tank issue is not sitting well with most of his fellow board members, Joseph Bratkovich, Jerry Patterson and Shockey. When the board took up the rate hike on Wednesday, English reminded the board where he stands on the tank matter.

He said that all of BASA’s projects, according to his calculations, will cost millions more than the authority’s contractors say.

Bratkovich, a retired accountant and a former Butler City Council member who drafted on the city’s budgets for years, asked where English had gotten his information.

English said he knew what he was talking about, although he said he didn’t have his figures with him. He said he could “go home and cook up those numbers for you.”

Bratkovich also told English that he did not appreciate statements English recently made in public and on a radio show that Bratkovich didn’t know what he was doing when he voted for the $1.3 million renovation project for BASA’s Litman Road building at Bratkovich’s first meeting as a BASA board member.

“I always do my homework, and I listen to everyone before making a decision,” Bratkovich said.

English then asked what the rate hike would cover, and Patterson said it will help to pay for the bond issue debt service for all of the projects, including the renovation project that English also has been vocally against.

“That was all wrapped up in the bond issue? It wasn’t suppose to be. We never discussed that,” English said.

Patterson told English the board did discuss what the bond issue was to cover, “and you voted for it.”

Returning to the tank issue, English said the type of tank built in the township and the city were picked by Chester Engineering when English claims Patterson was “in Harrisburg playing golf” and BASA manager Tom Rockovich was “with” Chester.

Rockovich stopped English.

“I usually try to stay clear of these discussions, but you just said something that is very inaccurate,” Rockovich said. “I was not ‘with’ anyone. My job is to follow the board’s decisions.”

“Well, I never saw such arm twisting,” English said, referring to Chester.

Rockovich said having an expert in a field, such as engineering company, make recommendations for the authority board “is the reason you hire an engineer.”

Bratkovich then jumped back into the fray, asking English if he sees that the board is the driving force of the authority. If so, why can’t English accept that the board made a decision about the tanks and get over that issue.

English responded that he reports to the “people of the city of Butler.”

Bratkovich then told English he has heard English rail against Chester Engineering for three years or more.

“So I’ll make you a deal right now: You make a motion to remove Chester as the authority’s engineer and I will second that motion,” Bratkovich said.

English said he had made similar motions in the past, but Shockey said he had never heard those motions. After pushing for several minutes without English making the motion, Bratkovich said he’d make the motion, which he did, if English would second it. English did.

Rockovich and Shockey both pointed out that to remove Chester in the middle of the BASA tanks and renovation projects would cost the authority “a lot of money,” Shockey said. English argued it would not.

After more discussion, English said he was withdrawing his second of the motion. With that Patterson said the motion died for lack of a second. The board then voted on the increase and it passed unanimously with English voting for it.

English was appointed to represent the city on the BASA board. His term expires Dec. 31.