While city officials continue thrashing out some kind of solution to the problem of funding the city’s trash collection system, other communities facing the same problem are opting to increase fees.
Princeton officials recently implemented an increase. This summer the city council voted to raise the fee from $6 per month, which it had been since the 1990s, to $10. It, too, is billed along with water and sewer services.
Seymour, which uses the same automated trash truck Vincennes does, adds $3 per month to the sewer bill as well. Bedford’s monthly fee is $12.98 per month.
Washington two years ago increased its trash collection fee — one billed right along with a residents’ water and sewer bill — from $2 per month to $15 per month.
But that may change as the city council considers adopting a $9 per month fee to cover its contract now that property tax revenue has decreased.
The alternative is cutting the cost of the contract, about $2.6 million, from the annual budget, which means laying off between 35-40 workers, about 8 percent of its total staff.
A survey of nearly all Indiana cities done by the Indiana Association of Cities and Towns revealed that the majority of municipalities issue a monthly bill to fund trash collection. Fees range from $3 per month all the way up to $15.
A couple cities still use a sticker system like Vincennes; a handful don’t charge anything at all.
Months ago street department superintendent Bryce Anderson said a random check revealed that the city stood to lose thousands per year with the current sticker system.
The sticker fee was more than doubled when the new automated truck was brought online two years ago. It only requires one man to operate; therefore no one was checking to be sure the trash bags — which are now required to be in special totes — had been stickered.
People, Anderson said, were abusing the system, and the city was losing money.
The number of people cheating the system decreased once the street department began cracking down, but council members believe a change of come kind is necessary.
“We’re still looking at different options,” Mayor Joe Yochum said. “And we keep getting held up because every time I check into something, another list of questions needs to be addressed.”
Several possibilities have been tossed out for consideration, namely a fee that would be included on a residents’ sewer and water bills.
But some homeowners, especially the elderly who don’t produce much trash, fought against the implementation of an across-the-board fee for all.
Yochum indicated that finding a way out of the current lease agreement, put into place by former mayor Al Baldwin, for the automated truck, one that Yochum said costs $500,000 a year, isn’t out of the question.
Neither is hiring a private company, much like Terre Haute did.
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http://suncommercial.com/articles/2012/10/27/news/local_news/doc508c945964265140667336.txt
