[Durham INC] Herald-Sun article: Monthly garbage, recycling fee sought

[Kelly Jarrett]

Durham neighbors--

I don't know how many of you saw the article in today's Herald-Sun, but 
Donald Long (Solid Waste Management Director) is proposing that Durham 
begin charging a monthly fee for garbage & recycling service. I've 
pasted a link and the article below.

My initial response to this proposal is: What a terrible idea. We see 
how badly this fee-for-service system works with yard waste. When it 
became fee based, people opted out. To make garbage & recycling 
fee-for-service based in a community such as ours, with a 50% rental 
housing rate, is a recipe for disaster. What happens if residents don't 
pay the fee? Their garbage isn't picked up? Whose responsibility is it 
to see the fee is paid: the residents? The property owner? The property 
manager? If a resident moves, does their trash fee move with them or 
would they have to pay again at a new property? Who will insure that 
fees are paid and trash is collected for each household? What happens if 
a property manager or rental owner goes belly-up and these fees aren't 
paid? How will the current legislation pending that would prohibit 
rental registries and limit inspections impact problems with trash 
pick-up, non-payment of fees? What happens if owners decide not to pay? 
Who will clean up after the inevitable surge of illegal dumping? Handle 
complaints from businesses who find other people's garbage in their 
commercial bins? Will animal control increase their responses to rat and 
pest infestations?

According to Long, this will enable Dept. of Solid Waste Management to 
"reduce its annual demand for property tax revenues." Bonfield says the 
move won't reduce the department's operating needs: "This is all just 
about how you pay for the service." This is a kind of "robbing Peter to 
pay Paul" accounting in which the losers are taxpayers, who will be 
saddled with a non-deductible fee for a service that is now tax-based 
and deductible. See the numbers Gronberg provides below: paying for the 
service will cost us $35/year; property tax rollbacks would lower 
property tax rates by $15--hardly a deal for taxpayers. I say--stop the 
smoke-and-mirrors accounting and don't nickle-and-dime Durham residents 
with fees for essential services like trash collection. Keep these 
services in the tax-base, where at least they are deductible and you can 
insure that everyone will receive the services.

Kelly Jarrett

Monthly Garbage, Recycling Fee Sought 
<http://www.heraldsun.com/view/full_story/13496064/article-Monthly-garbage--recycling-fee-sought?instance=homesecondleft>
By Ray Gronberg

gronberg at heraldsun.com; 419-6648

DURHAM -- Solid Waste Management Director Donald Long is telling elected 
officials he thinks it's "imperative" for Durham to emulate other North 
Carolina cities and begin charging residents a monthly collection fee 
for garbage and recycling.

Long said the move would enable his department to reduce its annual 
demand for property tax revenues, which in fiscal 2011-12 will cover 
$12.5 million of a $21.3 million budget.

He noted that Durham is an outlier among major North Carolina cities in 
not charging a collection fee. Ten of the 12 communities Durham usually 
compares itself to already have such a levy, Greensboro and 
Winston-Salem being the major exceptions.

A recent accounting change that labeled the Solid Waste Management 
Department's operation purely an "enterprise" fund implies that the 
department should lower its reliance on the city's tax-fortified general 
fund, Long said.

Long floated the idea during a recent City Council budget review. His 
boss, City Manager Tom Bonfield, was quick to point out that his fiscal 
2011-12 budget request doesn't include any request for a fee.

"It is not a recommendation" for the coming year, though it is something 
administrators are "continuing to explore" for future years and that 
might be worth talking about in detail early in the council's budget 
review for fiscal 2012-13, he said.

Bonfield added that a change from tax-paid to fee-paid collections 
wouldn't be driven by Solid Waste's operational needs. "This is all just 
about how you pay for the service," he said.

Long's comments took City Council members by surprise. "Thanks for 
waking us up," Councilman Eugene Brown quipped, alluding to the subject 
having cropped up fairly late in a daylong meeting.

Reaction among them was mixed.

Mayor Bill Bell pointed out that the imposition of a collection fee 
would allow a future council to roll back property taxes by an amount 
equivalent to the new revenue.

Long singled out as a potential example for Durham to follow the $2.95 
monthly fee Asheville charges residents for recycling service.

He said a similarly sized levy here would raise about $2.3 million, 
about the same amount as a penny on the city's property tax rate 
generate for the city.

But Councilwoman Diane Catotti -- who's stepping down at the end of her 
term later this year -- noted that a collection fee could hurt 
lower-income residents.

"Clearly, fees for general services are more regressive than the 
property tax," she said. "I might rather leave [garbage and recycling 
collections] in the tax rate."

Were an Asheville-sized fee on offer in Durham for fiscal 2011-12, it 
would cost most homeowners $35.40. A revenue-equivalent rollback of 
property taxes would put only about $15 back in the hands of the owner 
of a $150,000 house.

But anyone with a house valued in the neighborhood of $350,000 and above 
would get more back from a property tax rollback than the fee would 
cost. Business owners and anyone else who uses use a private dumpster 
collection service would also benefit.

Durham officials have long chafed at comparisons of their city's tax 
rate to those of other cities, such as Raleigh, that rely more heavily 
on service fees than their own. Those that do can use lower tax rates, 
but the overall, fee-inclusive cost burden for residents can be a little 
different.

Over the years, Long has been more willing than most Durham department 
directors to suggest major changes to the financing of his operation.

In 2007, he floated the idea of establishing a $51.90 annual fee to 
finance expanded yard-waste and bulky-item pickups. That proposal never 
made it past the talking stage, as then-City Manager Patrick Baker 
declined to support it.
<http://addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250>


Read more: The Herald-Sun - Monthly garbage recycling fee sought 
<http://www.heraldsun.com/view/full_story/13496064/article-Monthly-garbage--recycling-fee-sought?instance=homesecondleft#ixzz1NwKKyFJ5> 

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