Lowndes County will see an increase to garbage fees but, at least for now, is not passing that cost on to customers.
County Administrator Jay Fisher told the board about the hike at its regular meeting on Tuesday.
“(Golden Triangle Solid Waste) is going to increase their fees on individual (pickups), effective Jan. 1,” Fisher said.
The increase comes to about 53 cents per house, Fisher said, which comes out to more than $7,200.
“Golden Triangle (Waste Services) does our collections for us, and they collect from about 13,655 households in Lowndes County,” he said. “Currently county residents are paying $12 a month for that service. At some point in the future we will need to address whether we should increase that rate to cover this increase.”
Fisher said the last increase came about 18 months ago, and the supervisors opted not to raise the rates then. Money from the solid waste reserve fund was used to cover the increase.
“We have been slowly eating into that reserve, and this will eat into it quicker,” Fisher said. “We don’t necessarily need to do anything right now, but in six months or so we need to see what kind of effect it’s had on the reserve. Our monthly bill is about $120,000 now, then you’ve got to add in 13,000 or so people at 50 cents-ish.”
He estimated around $500,000 was in the reserve fund now.
District 5 Supervisor Leroy Brooks asked what was driving the increase, and District 1 Supervisor Harry Sanders said the cost of practically everything had gone up.
“Wages, gas, truck prices, maintenance costs have all gone up,” he said. “It’s hard to get people to work.”
“It’s the same pressures as everybody else,” said District 2 Supervisor and President Trip Hairston.
The solid waste authority is also struggling to find workers because of the low wages, Sanders said.
No action was taken.
In other business, the board took no action on a proposal made last month to start making truckers carrying heavy loads get bonded.
At the board’s Nov. 30 meeting, Road Manager Ronnie Burns and County Engineer Bob Calvert said that big trucks were poised to damage newly paved roads in western Lowndes County. The problem is a common one but is getting worse as the county is faced with the prospect of fixing the same roads over and over because of the damage inflicted by heavy trucks.
Calvert told the board last month that there were dirt haulers coming from West Point to the new FedEx facility, and their trucks were too heavy for Taylor Thurston and Steger roads, which were being used as a shortcut to the site rather than using the highway. The supervisors discussed requiring permits, which would set out a specific route, or requiring the trucks to be bonded, or both.
Calvert said the crisis had been averted for now.
“It seems they are going to use some other method other than those roads,” Calvert said. “They were told they needed to make a request to use those roads, and they have not done that.”
No action was taken.
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