NATCHEZ, Miss. – Adams County supervisors today quietly and quickly approved a $35 monthly garbage fee after more than two hours of hearing a roomful of residents stridently complain about the higher rate.
Paying $20 more a month for the trash-pickup service is justified to track the overall rate of inflation and to pay what’s charged by the contracted waste hauler, according to county supervisors.
“I’m going to be fair, but it’s a hard decision,” said Adams County board President Warren Gaines, who joined fellow supervisors Angela Hutchins and Ricky Gray in defending the garbage rate hike to continue the twice-a-week pickups.
However, the two dissenting board members – supervisors Wes Middleton and Kevin Wilson – have argued for reducing garbage collection to once a week to save money.
“It stinks, and it’s not just the garbage,” Wilson said of the deal the divided board made earlier this year with New Orleans-based trash collector United Infrastructure Services.
The $15 that households outside Natchez have been paying for several years for garbage collection goes up to $35 in November.
The board heard today from 25 or so people who questioned the need for such an increase and cited the financial burden of paying $240 more a year.
After ending the public hearing, supervisors promptly and inaudibly approved the garbage fee increase with little attention by the 40 or so people in attendance as they noisily flowed out of the county boardroom.
Residents inside Natchez pay $24.15 a month per household to have their trash hauled away in a separate arrangement the city Board of Aldermen has with Arrow Disposal Service.The monthly assessment went up by $2 in August.
About 5,700 Adams County households are impacted by the 233 percent garbage tax increase, according to county board attorney Scott Slover.
While UIS is actually charging $26.66 per household to collect garbage, nearly $10 more was added by the board to total $35 to cover the costs of disposing the trash in a private landfill, maintaining county dumpster sites and paying county sanitation department staffers. The garbage tax hike is projectedto generate an extra $1.4 million a year, according to county officials.
The multiyear contract with UIS calls for the company being paid 5 percent more each year, but any increase for what residents pay must be presented to the public and approved by the Board of Supervisors before taking effect.
Some residents attending the board’s public hearing questioned whether the contract could be nullified and redone, but the county board is bound by its terms. However, supervisors indicated the deal with UIS could be voided if the trash collector is poorly performing.
“The lack of actually doing the job might be enough (to nullify the contract),” said Wilson, who recited complaints about UIS’ service.
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