Now with the starter trash fee.
Mayor John Whitmire
Mayor John Whitmire rolled out a $7.5 billion budget for the city’s upcoming fiscal year Tuesday, saying a new $5 monthly fee would help the city’s long-struggling Solid Waste department but offering few specifics on how its operations would improve.
The fee, if approved by council, would be $5 per month for all residents served by city garbage service for the next two years, Whitmire said. Council Member Tiffany D. Thomas and five other sources briefed on the proposal said last week they were told the fee would incrementally increase until residents were charged $25 per month in 2032.
But on Tuesday, the mayor did not commit to that plan.
“We’ll keep it at five the next two years, and then council, in future budgets, will determine where we go from there, because we’re not going to do what I would call a genuine garbage fee until we improve services,” Whitmire said.
Whitmire pitched the new $5 “administrative fee” not only as a means to improve solid waste operations but as a way to back the city away from a financial cliff.
The city’s $3.1 billion general fund provides most core services and faced a deficit of about $180 million. Whitmire proposes to move the $117 million Solid Waste budget from the general fund to the city’s utility system within Houston Public Works.
Whitmire also proposes to charge the utility system $104 million for its pipes using the city right of way, a payment that will also go into the general fund. The moves shift costs from the general fund – fed mostly by property and sales taxes – and onto the utility system, which is funded by water and sewer bills.
The mayor did not give specifics when asked how the new fee would improve the department’s operations beyond providing Solid Waste needed resources.
“Public Works is one of our largest departments, so they will collaborate,” Whitmire said. “Look at the best routes, better equipment, and you will notice the difference.”
The city, he added, would work with neighborhood leaders and the police department to address illegal dumping.
Houston also runs a “sponsorship” program that gives each household that opts out of city trash services $6 per month to help pay for private trash collection.
Whitmire did not say whether the program would continue, saying the issue would be “under discussion” as Solid Waste merges with Public Works. Whitmire also said lower fee options for low-income and elderly residents might be on the table if the new fee tops $5.
“I’ve got some very smart directors,” Whitmire said. “We’re going to do this merger. We’re going to listen to council, but more importantly, we’re going to listen to the Houston people.”
City Controller Chris Hollins denounced Whitmire’s proposal, saying using water and sewer revenues for trash service was not an example of budget efficiency. The mayor, he said, is “raiding one fund after another until there’s no juice left to squeeze,” pointing to when the city used stormwater funds to demolish buildings.
“The pattern of shifting costs, the pattern of hiding the true costs — this is familiar to us, and it should concern every Houstonian who expects their city government to play it straight,” Hollins said in a Tuesday afternoon press conference.
Residents are being misled about the garbage fee, he added, saying the fee “doesn’t come close” to covering the cost of trash pickup. The true figures are in an unreleased study the city commissioned more than two years ago on solid waste operations, he said.
“Where’s that study?” Hollins said. “The mayor needs to release the full study to us so that we can understand what’s in it.”
Advocates with the Houston People’s Budget, a grassroots coalition of “flood survivors, workers, immigrants and neighborhood organizations,” also criticized Whitmire’s plan.
“The mayor’s budget proposal passes the city’s financial burdens to the Houstonians with the least resources and moves money from one critical need (water and wastewater) to another (trash pickup),” Alice Liu, a campaigner for the group, said in a statement. “What we need instead is a budget that prioritizes Houstonians, addresses failing water and flood infrastructure, refuses to compromise on worker safety, and stops police overspending.”
[…]
The main beneficiaries of removing the Solid Waste department from the strained general fund remain Houston’s police and fire departments, which make up the majority of that fund.
The proposed police department budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1 is $1.2 billion, $105 million more than the current budget year. The fire department would get $719 million, a $60 million increase.
The city’s parks department budget would get a bump of $1.3 million compared to the current budget, and the city library system would get $1 million more.
See here for some background on the trash fee, here for the Mayor’s press release on the budget, which you can read here, and here for more on that trash pikcup subsidy, in which the city “reimburses homeowners associations $6 per house each month if they contract with private garbage collection services instead of using the city’s Solid Waste department”, because it’s cheaper to do that than to include them in city solid waste services. That sure seems like an argument to me for increasing the trash fee, and then we can easily justify killing that subsidy. I would bet $10 right now that ain’t gonna happen.
I also don’t like moving Solid Waste under Public Works, as it also raises questions about the sewage consent decree and how that will be funded. I might feel differently if there were more details. I could see how this might be a fit, but it’s easier to see how these two should be separate departments. Show me the math on this one to make it make sense. As for the trash fee, I’m open to the argument for phasing it in, but what does $5 a month actually accomplish? I thought the goal here was to make solid waste self-sufficient or at least close to it, as it is in other cities. What are we doing here? Maybe the Council debates will help clarify, because we need it. More here and here from the Chron, and here from KUHF.