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

Tue May 31 11:42:07 EDT 2011

I totally agree with Kelly Jarrett's assessment.

Sally Clark
Prudential YSU Realty
921 Morreene Road
Durham, NC 27705

919-270-7558,cell
919-313-3469,office
919-282-1398, E-FAX

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Melissa Rooney 
  To: kjj1 at duke.edu ; inc-list at DurhamINC.org ; owdna at yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2011 11:33 AM
  Subject: Re: [Durham INC] Herald-Sun article: Monthly garbage,recycling fee sought

        Totally agree with you Kelly. At least taxes hold the property owner responsible for the aesthetics in the neighborhood (s)he hopes to profit from...renters who are temporary residents don't have such an investment in Durham in the long run. 
        Melissa 

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  From: Kelly Jarrett <kjj1 at duke.edu>; 
  To: <inc-list at DurhamINC.org>; owdNA <owdna at yahoogroups.com>; 
  Subject: [Durham INC] Herald-Sun article: Monthly garbage, recycling fee sought 
  Sent: Tue, May 31, 2011 2:46:21 PM 

        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

        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.

        Read more: The Herald-Sun - Monthly garbage recycling fee sought 

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