City and county garbage, recycling fees may increase in 2021. What officials are planning
The city of Sacramento might require homeowners to pay roughly $6 more per month for waste, recycling and yard waste pickup starting in July, despite the coronavirus pandemic.
The city’s Utilities Rate Advisory Commission will on Wednesday consider a proposal that would increase the rate for a household with a 64-gallon container from $42.59 to $48.80 on July 1. Then, on July 1, 2022, the rate would increase another roughly $3 to $51.57.
The rate increase would need to be approved by the full City Council. In 2019, the rate was significantly lower, at $36.89 per month.
On Tuesday, the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors turned down a proposal to raise waste and recycling rates over the next five years for the nearly 162,000 customers who rely on the service in unincorporated parts of the county.
All five county lawmakers were unanimous in their decision to set aside a plan by the county’s Department of Waste Management and Recycling that would dramatically raise the monthly price of their services.
The proposal would add a little more than $13 to monthly bills starting next year until the fee reaches $36.35 in fiscal year 2025 for a 30-gallon container. The fee would increase at the same rate for 60- and 80-gallon containers.
In December 2019, city of Sacramento staff asked the council to consider a larger rate increase to pay for 21 new waste equipment operators and 21 new vehicles, a city staff report said. The council approved a rate hike that allowed the city to buy eight vehicles and hire eight employees, the report said.
The city still needs 13 more employees and vehicles due to the increase in the city population, inflation, regulatory changes and cost of living increases, the report said. Prior to adding the eight employees and vehicles, the the Department of Public Works’ Recycling and Solid Waste Division had not added any new full-time employees or vehicles since 2013, despite getting over 5,000 new accounts, the report said.
In addition, a new state law that goes into effect Jan. 1 will require food waste be diverted from landfills and recycled as compost or renewable gas — also adding to the need for increased rates, the report said.
But even before the coronavirus pandemic struck, elected officials were hesitant about increasing rates too much. During a December 2019 meeting, Mayor Darrell Steinberg said he wanted to instead have a consultant find efficiencies, eliminating the need to raise rates, or add new services in exchange for the raised rates.
The city’s Utilities Rate Commission meeting is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Wednesday. It will be livestreamed on the city website.
Board of Supervisors hold off their decision
At their meeting Tuesday, the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors asked the waste management officials to find a way to hold-off on the proposed increase until after the worst of the coronavirus pandemic has passed.
“We’ve got a lot of letters of people in real pain over this,” Supervisor Susan Peters said. “When we first talked about it I think we all thought the virus would be done with and everybody would be back working by summer. I understand the need for it but there’s just so many people out of work.”
County officials warned that a number of regulatory changes are driving the push to raise rates as the county prepares to collect green waste every week, said Doug Sloan, who oversees the department.
Many recycling processors who take material from local governments are still reckoning with less demand from China which has raised the standard on the quality of recycled material it will accept in recent years. The country has been the most dominant importer of material from the United States so the shift in attitude has thrown a financial curveball to municipal recycling programs.
Sacramento County is no different.
Sloan said the department’s finances have also been hurt by changes in the recycling markets that once netted a more than $1 million in profit for the county but now costs as much as $2.5 million.
“That’s a 4.5 million swing that we’ve been absorbing through our reserves,” Sloan told supervisors.
The other driver is green waste — the brush, branches and leaves the county collects every other week. Getting rid of it used to be easy, Sloan said, when a Sierra County energy company took the waste for little or nothing. That changed in recent years, forcing the county to find a new processor that composts it instead. The move has come at a significant cost.
“Green waste processing a few years ago was nearly a zero cost to us,” Sloan said. “Last year, it was $70 a ton or 6.3 million and this year we’re averaging a cost of about $80 to $85 a ton so that’s probably closer to $8 million.”
Some of the supervisors became frustrated with the timing of the proposal which first came before the board on March 10 — four days before the state’s stay home order. The hearing Tuesday would have pushed it closer to approval in time for rates to go up at the beginning of the new year.
“You’re asking us today to approve this, which will go into effect Feb. 1. And then come July 1, there’s another rate increase right on the heels of it because you’re taking it in fiscal years,” said Supervisor Don Nottoli. “You say it’s over five years but it’s really 3 years and some months.”
Nottoli later clarified that the increase would actually be spread over four years and a few months.
Sloan said there were few ways to alleviate the financial pressure and that the rates have not increased in 10 years, citing other cities like Sacramento and Folsom that have already moved in the same direction.
“There just isn’t another way around it if we’re going to try and finance this,” Sloan said.
This story was originally published December 9, 2020 at 11:40 AM.
