PORT ANGELES — The Port Angeles City Council has eliminated a solid waste collections surcharge for utility customers.
Council members voted 7-0 Tuesday to can the surcharge effective Sept. 1, erasing a redundancy in the solid waste fee schedule.
The monthly surcharge is $1.68 for the weekly collection of one 90-gallon trash container and $3.85 per month for the weekly collection of one 300-gallon commercial container.
Residential customers who have their garbage collected every other week pay a $1.09 surcharge.
“It’s not a lot of money, but there’s no reason to be charging it,” acting Finance Director Tess Agesson told the council in an hourlong meeting Tuesday.
In reviewing collection rates for a 2018 cost-of-service analysis, city staff discovered that customers were being charged twice for the payment of two bonds that funded the Port Angeles Regional Transfer Station bluff stabilization project, Agesson said.
The surcharge for the limited obligation and solid waste revenue bonds appears in two places: once on customer bills and again as a charge through the transfer station for tipping fees.
“In order to correct that, we’re recommending an immediate stop, or a Sept. 1, 2017, elimination, of the surcharge that goes to our collection customers within the city,” Agesson told the council.
“It’s the fair and equitable thing to do for our customers in order to not charge more than they should be [charged] for these two bond issues.”
Tipping fees at the transfer station will not change.
The city hired an outside agency to develop the surcharge package for the payment of the bluff stabilization project, Agesson said.
City staff promised the public and the elected council to evaluate solid waste collection rates on an ongoing basis, she added.
“In review this year, when we looked at it, we discovered that we’re collecting much more than we thought we needed to,” Agesson said.
Independent of the surcharge, staff will conduct a full review of the city’s solid waste collection rates. The decision to raise, lower or keep existing rates will be made at a future date, Agesson said.
“But this one was so obvious that we were double-dipping into the citizens’ payment of the surcharge that we wanted to resolve it as quickly as possible,” Agesson said.
In order to remove the surcharge from the September billing cycle, the council waived a second reading of the ordinance.
“Thank you, staff,” Deputy Mayor Cherie Kidd said.
“This is a great catch.”
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56450, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
