Billing dispute between State College Borough, local sewer authority expected to go to court

State College, PA (WJAC) — Now to the latest on a dispute between State College Borough and the largest wastewater treatment authority in the Centre region.

The dispute may be heading to court this year over a disagreement over the borough's payments to the authority.

UAJA is the University Area Joint Authority and State College Borough is among its more than 14,000 customers for wastewater treatment or water recycling services.

State College has its own sewage system and uses UAJA mainly for treatment and disposal.

When UAJA increased its rate for the borough a few years ago, the borough protested.

The authority then filed a lawsuit, and State College, in a counterclaim, accused UAJA of overcharging the borough by millions of dollars.

The borough continued to pay what it deemed reasonable but not the entire bill.

Since then, the borough has been charged with late fees by UAJA.

At last May's UAJA board of directors meeting, the agenda minutes note that the borough then was said to have over a million dollars in delinquent billing costs.

Last month at their board meeting, UAJA executive director Cory Miller said he’s expecting the dispute to go to court, a possible trial, later this year.

According to Miller, the borough's payments to UAJA are roughly $700,000 a year less than what it has been billed, and about 30 percent of the UAJA rate increase this year to all its customers is due to the borough's billing shortfall.

When recently asked about the dispute, several State College administrators said they had no comment.

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