Troy reckoning non-payments
13% of Troy housing units liable for trash pickup fees don’t pay Troy
When it comes to paying the city to haul away their garbage or for illegal trash disposal fines, a sizeable number of property owners haven’t settled up, city records show.
The city charge for garbage pickup has been ignored by owners of about 13 percent the housing units liable for the fee.
And the numbers have soared as high as 74 percent for those not paying their fines for dumping and littering.
City officials speculate the loss of the unpaid trash bills worth about $896,284 could be due in some cases to COVID -19 hardships or property owners waiting to pay the fees and fines when they are added to next year’s property tax bills.
The City Council voted unanimously Thursday night to re-levy $2.5 million in unpaid garbage, water, sewer and
vacant building fees on the 2021 city tax bills. The trash fees and fines account for 35 percent of the total.
“There’s apparently some folks that assume if they don’t pay it, it’s going to be re-levied. A lot of people just tend to ignore (the trash fee) and pay one bill. Again, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” Councilwoman Sue
Steele, D -3rd District, said.
Steele, a member of the council’s General Services Committee, which oversees garbage pickup, also said: “It’s been a challenging year all around for everybody. We’re all conflicted about how to handle it.”
The city currently charges a garbage fee of $167 per housing unit, rising to $193 in 2021. About 18,330 units are charged the trash fee, with 2,401 not having paid it. This is down from 2,544 unpaid bills just two weeks ago.
“It keeps going up and up,” said Republican City Council President Carmella Mantello, who has opposed the fee as a disguised tax on city property owners.
Mayor Patrick Madden’s administration had suggested postponing the re-levy for a year as a way of dealing with possible pandemic-caused delinquencies, but the city charter requires the unpaid fees and fines be added to upcoming tax bills.
“We are not ignoring the challenges some families are facing,” said Madden spokesman John Salka.
The city has to pay for the services residents expect, the officials said. The unpaid fees are $240,509 for garbage fines, $645,775 for garbage collection fees, $199,800 for vacant buildings, $10,454 for sewer and water shop fees and $1,444,346 split evenly for unpaid water and sewer charges.
The city revved up its enforcement of illegal dumping by assigning two trash enforcement officers to crack down on garbage tossed in alleys and other violations. The city said it had 2,369 trash tickets this year with a high of 1,748 unpaid at the beginning of December.
The city ’s sanitation department has focused on “trash hot spots” using surveillance cameras with instantaneous video feeds to laptops and smart phones to monitor alleys, streets and lots.