WARNER ROBINS, Ga. — Warner Robins might be raising the city's sanitation fee, which means your trash bill would go up.
If you're anything like Ernest Cooling, you take your trash out each week and you pay your bill each month. Cooling lives in Warner Robins on two checks a month.
"I get my military retirement and I get my Social Security and that's it," he said.
His fixed income forces him to spend every dollar wisely.
"I still worry about buying my food, getting enough to take care of my dogs, take care of my house," he said.
Now, he might need to budget more for his sanitation bill. Assistant City Finance Director Holly Gross says the Warner Robins sanitation account is now more than a million dollars in the hole.
"The city is projecting $1.7 million as an accumulative amount of loss by end of fiscal year, which is June 30," said Gross. "We were just, you know, barely breaking even two years ago and then the rate increases we have received from the contractor -- we've lost money the last two years and gone in the red."
That's why the city's finance committee recommends a 20% rate increase for residential and commercial carts; and a 31% increase for dumpsters, shredders and vertical trash compactors.
Right now, residential trash pick-up fees stand at $16.50 a month. If council votes to increase the rate, it would cost $19.80 a month.
"Since it's been so long since we have raised the rates, the sanitization fund actually is in the red right now. Although we could use ARPA (American Rescue Plan) funds to get us back in to a positive position, if we do not raise the rates, we will just go back into the red, so we cannot allow that to happen. We need to be charging our citizens, our customers enough to at least pay for the service we are providing; and that's what the rate increase would be for. We just would not have to ask them to pay for the losses that we have suffered thus far," said Gross.
Cooling agrees something needs to be done, even if it hurts financially.
"We've got to do something. If they did go up on my bill and stuff, yeah, it's going to hurt me. But, we've got to do something, we've got to help other people," he said.
"We [the city] have some decisions to make on how to use the American Rescue Plan Act money, but there is a provision in there that you can use your revenue loss, you can determine revenue loss calculation and that money, that portion of your funds can be used to help with your government services. It's a pretty broad category and the idea is to help cities make up for some of the economic impact of the pandemic, because it is has affected everybody. It affected the citizens and the government, in terms of loss revenue. So we are going to look into the possibility that we can use some of that money to pay for some the sanitation expenses, since it is a government service, among other things. We will be considering a lot of things, but that is one thing we are considering, and that will enable us not to have to go to the citizens to raise the rates even further to get us out of the hole that we are in right now," said Gross.
The city has "up to $10 million [in American Rescue Plan funds]," but she says they "wouldn't need that much for this purpose. It's a standard law, up to $10 million."
Now, the city did want to do this earlier in 2021, but the pandemic slowed down the process. The last time the City of Warner Robins increased its sanitation fee was in 2015.
The city's current sanitation contract ends this year. Council plans to vote on the rate increase during its next meeting.