As it weighs possible rate-hike scenarios tied to a yet-to-be finalized consent agreement with the state Department of Environmental Protection, the Butler Area Sewer Authority should commit itself to regular updates to its customers on the authority's financial status.

Authority customers are facing potentially significant increases over the next half-decade or so, and it is the authority's responsibility to do everything possible to alleviate the inevitable concerns about whether the authority is doing the right thing.

Those updates to customers should include a breakdown of money on hand, uncommitted funds, obligations, pending obligations, and any other category to explain why what will be sought is a necessity.

It will not be enough for the authority to say merely that a particular rate hike is necessary due to the consent agreement, which involves a DEP mandate for the authority to halt stormwater infiltration into the sanitary sewer system.

In a June 1 letter to the editor, Kelly Burch, DEP's Northwest Region director, said more than 31 million gallons of inadequately treated sewage flowed into the Connoquenessing Creek and its tributaries last year as a result of overloads in the authority's system.

John Schon, BASA manager, says the authority might need to spend $40 million to $50 million to eliminate the overflows. That might necessitate a costly expansion of the sewage treatment plant as part of the overall remedy.

In explaining future increases and the way the authority intends to pursue the extra money, Schon and other authority officials must be clear on the facts about flat-rate billing as compared with possibly switching to a metered method in which a customer's bill presumably would be determined by the amount of water usage.

And, since not all homes served by the authority have public water, the authority will need to explain how fair billing for all will be possible amid such inconsistencies.

Customers will want such answers, and they deserve to receive them.

DEP has been playing hardball with the authority since the authority failed to meet the terms of a previous consent agreement that expired at the end of last year. It is widely believed here that a DEP moratorium on new sewage tap-ins was an overreaction by the state agency.

But BASA isn't an innocent victim. For too many years it delayed substantive actions to address the infiltration issue, and now BASA customers will have to endure the higher costs of resolving the problems.

No doubt the prospect of much higher rates — possibly a doubling of current bills — is particularly troubling to customers such as in Center Township who already are paying surcharges on their sewage bills due to past extensions of the BASA system.

According to Schon, before BASA decides on the amount of rate increase needed and the rate-increase method to be followed, the authority wants to assemble, in detail, the costs requiring the increase.

That is important. However, the authority should not stop there; it must provide customers with BASA's full financial picture to show what the authority faces if it doesn't impose the increases.

BASA says some kind of decision could come as early as the authority's Sept. 5 meeting. But the public should have a window of time to digest the authority's proposal and financial circumstances before major decisions are finalized.

If customers want to ask questions, they should have the opportunity to ask them before — not after — a financial plan is finalized.