The rate hikes are expected to be widespread and will vary in size.

For example, more than 20,000 households served by the Lancaster Area Sewer Authority in Lancaster's western suburbs will pay an estimated $17.40, or 6.5 percent, more per year.

LASA serves residential customers in East and West Hempfield, Manor, Lancaster and Manheim townships. Those customers pay about $270 a year for service, according to LASA's Web site.

For the 80,000 households served by Lancaster City's treatment facilities, the rate hike likely will be much smaller, between $4 and $5 a year.

The city treats wastewater from its own residents as well as from those in Manheim, Upper Leacock, East Lampeter, West Lampeter, Pequea and Lancaster townships. Those residents pay about $120 a year.

"I think the state is really putting an undue burden on the already heavily taxed citizens of the state,'' said Charlotte Katzenmoyer, the director of Lancaster City's Public Works Department.

The sewer-project funding cuts may well be the least publicized of the many hits that various agencies and programs have taken in Rendell's slim 2003-2004 state budget. The spending plan has been approved by the Legislature and signed, in part, by the governor.

Rendell slashed all of the $52 million in funding that would have gone to treatment-plant projects across Pennsylvania. The money would have been used for construction and for facility upgrades. The state has provided $362 million to sewer plants in the last eight years.

Without the money, though, the plant operators, including many municipalities, will be forced to hike user fees to make up for the loss.

Treatment plants in Lancaster County are expected to lose $1.9 million they seemed destined to get next year. The biggest losses will be absorbed by facilities that serve the city and its immediate suburbs.

The city, for example, will lose $380,000, Katzenmoyer said. LASA, meanwhile, will lose $375,000. Because the city has four times as many customers as LASA, the impact on individual customers will be less severe.

Lititz Borough, meanwhile, will lose about $10,000 next year. Its plant serves households there and in neighboring Warwick Township. It is unclear how large a rate hike might be for customers there, said Mayor Russ Pettyjohn.

State Rep. Roy E. Baldwin, a Republican from Manheim Township, favors restoring funding to the sewer-plant program but says finding the money to do so in a tight state budget will be difficult.

"I think it's an unfortunate reality that there's just not enough money out there, and if in fact the state is going to hold the line on spending, then you have to cut some things,'' Baldwin said.

"The bottom line is that authorities really have to bite the bullet, and they have to jack the prices because people have to start paying for the services that they're provided. Obviously nobody likes to do this,'' Baldwin said.

"If I can find a place to get the money, then I'd love to restore (the money),'' Baldwin said. "If not, it's going to fall on the backsides of the citizens.''



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