Costs for disposing of garbage are going up 11 percent for Marion County.
Waste Pro, which has the contract to collect and haul both city and county garbage, has announced cost increases to both entities. The county’s monthly fee per customer is going up from $6.55 to $7.29.
The increases are included in the contracts signed several years ago and are taking effect soon. City officials raised rates to residential customers by $5 recently and the county raised rates $1 earlier this year and may need to consider another increase to offset the costs.
Chris Lockwood, Waste Pro’s regional manager for the territory that includes Marion County, spoke to members of the Board of Supervisors at a meeting last Thursday. Columbia Alderman-at-Large Edward Hough also attended the meeting along with County Board Attorney Joe Shepard, County Comptroller Susie Bridges and Chancery Clerk Cass Barnes.
Recently, supervisors received a letter informing them of the company’s desire to take the option to increase charges.
“We’ve looked over our account and it seems to be in order. The only thing that we don’t have in order is that it came upon us all of a sudden, right at budget season,” District 2 Supervisor Terry Broome. “We had budgeted and thought we were going to be in pretty good shape with solid waste and this is going to knock it in the hole. We’re not disagreeing at all with the letter.”
District 4 Supervisor Raymon “Tater” Rowell said the Board needed to look at payment options.
“It’s going to put us in the red,” he said. “Being in business before, I know increases have to happen. That much at one time is difficult.”
“It’s solely based on the contract language,” Lockwood told the Board. “Really, what we do on annual basis is we evaluate every contract. I went and I evaluated everything and we sent letters to you. In the marketplace, especially the garbage marketplace, rates are going up and they are going up at a pretty good clip because of the economy. Everything is picking up. It really just came down to the contract. I realize it’s a big jump, 11.33 percent all at once. In my opinion, this is the direction that rates are going up rapidly. The lowest rates of any contract I have are in Marion County.”
Lockwood said the contract is up in 2019 and consumers could see more increases then.
“We signed the contract in 2013 and it was based on $6.55 per customer,” he said. “We’ve been at $6.55 for two years since we bought the contract out from Red River. The increase would be to $7.29. It’s a very reasonable increase. Next year, I foresee at least one percent on the Consumer Price Index, we would bring the rate to $8.02 then. It comes back to operations … we really need to increase.”
Broome asked about options for the county included splitting the increase over the next two years. Shepard said the county could get the money to cover the increases by either raising the price of collection or by raising the amount of millage that goes toward waste disposal.
