YOUNGSTOWN — The Mahoning County commissioners’ agenda for today’s meeting includes a vote on whether to approve a rate increase for the Jackson-Milton Water District.

The meeting begins at 9 a.m. in the commissioners meeting room in the basement of the Mahoning County Courthouse.

At a meeting May 25 in the Jackson Township Hall in North Jackson, the commissioners revealed that the price of water in the county-owned Jackson-Milton Water District will rise to $10.50 per thousand gallons July 1 and rise again to $14.29 per thousand gallons Jan. 1, 2027, if the commissioners approve the rate increases proposed by an engineering firm.

Residents currently pay $5.25 per thousand gallons, said Mahoning County Auditor Ralph Meacham, who attended the meeting partly as a Lake Milton resident.

Commissioner David Ditzler said the meeting was not intended to be a “question and answer” session, and he referred questions to Pat Ginnetti, the commissioners-appointed sanitary engineer, who was not at the meeting because he was out of town.

The commissioners briefly discussed the numbers and handed out copies of the proposed rates during a commissioners “staff meeting.” The meeting was intended to share the details of the rate study with township and village officials in the water district, as they promised they would do, Ditzler said.

“We said all along once we got the rate study that we would come back and provide the rate study results to elected officials in the three communities — Craig Beach and Jackson and Milton townships — and take that back and digest it,” Ditzler said of township and village officials.

Ditzler said that other than the proposed rate increase, “everything else will remain status quo.” Ditzler chose his words carefully, but said the proposed rate increase “doesn’t consume anyone with respect to being drastic. We looked at these compared to a lot of rates” from Youngstown and Aqua Ohio, and the proposed rates “are very competitive, if not lower, than most of the rates countywide.”

He would not say whether the commissioners will approve the increased rates, but the tone of his remarks were encouraging to the township and village officials in attendance, who took the information to mean the commissioners were considering keeping the water district instead of selling it, as Ditzler suggested a year ago.

Milton Township Trustee Wendy DiBernardo thanked the commissioners for “taking the time to look into this, and we ask that you consider keeping it in-house and keeping it under your control, and I think everyone’s going to be thrilled with that.”