LEETONIA — Village fiscal officer Nick Mistovich asked mayor Kevin Siembida and council members to consider some possible options as he continues efforts to keep the water operating fund fluid.

During Wednesday’s regular meeting, Mistovich once again brought up a timing issue with collection of payments and his payment to the City of Salem, who provides Leetonia’s water and sewer.

Salem’s due date is the 15th of each month and so is Leetonia’s due date for its customers.

If Leetonia doesn’t have its bill paid by the 15th, the city imposes a 10 percent late fee, which can amount to several thousand dollars when one has a five-figure bill like Leetonia does.

Leetonia serves around 800 water customers.

Mistovich in a bit of a conundrum, as he doesn’t typically have all his money in time to pay the city of Salem, as households don’t usually pay until the 14th to 18th of the month, leaving Mistovich to pay out of the water operating fund and trust the money will follow.

Earlier this year, he even had to do a fund transfer to infuse the line item in order to pay the bill when it became too tight.

Currently Leetonia allots 71 percent of water customer payments into the water operating fund, which pays 100 percent of the Salem water bill. Another 24 percent goes into the water capital fund with the remainder put aside for items related to maintaining the system. The remainder goes into sewer funds, which do continue to grow despite few if any payouts.

Mistovich suggested reallotting the funds, allowing a greater percentage to go into water operating and less into the other funds, as they don’t fund the water bill.

Council members were mixed on the offered solution. Some noted that it seemed like a viable solution — especially in consideration of raising water rates. Others expressed concern about impacting the customers adversely.

Mistovich said that his attempts to contact Salem city officials to move his due date a few days later went unacknowledged.

Village solicitor Abby Minamyer also pointed out that the village has not increased rates to residents in order to keep up with the increasing Salem rates.

A solution might be to increase rates to keep up.

Over the past three years, the city of Salem has increased rates 17 percent –Leetonia is 12 percent for that span.

Mistovich would like to get something in place by the end of the year.

In other action, council paid $68.960.64 worth of bills and approved the third reading of an ordinance contracting with the Regional Income Tax Authority (RITA) for the collection of delinquent taxes and establishing a $3,000 fund.

Also as requested, council also agreed to spend purchase two hot sticks at $600 each and pay for up to $400 balance remaining on a portable hose washer for the Leetonia Volunteer Fire Department.

According to Fire Chief Larry Hephner, the hot sticks can identify if downed wires are live at emergency scenes and the washer allows crews to wash their contaminated hoses at emergency scenes before returning to the station.

The remaining $5,500 cost is being covered by the local American Legion and VFW chapters, he added.

The next council meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 17 at council chambers.