County considers amending trash regs
An ordinance amending trash collection regulations that the Garland County Quorum Court’s Environmental Services/Public Works & Building Committee advanced last week prevents the payment of real property taxes until delinquent trash bills are paid.
Current regulations don’t allow personal property taxes to be paid if they’re attached to a residence with delinquent trash collec-
tion bills of 90 days or more. County Tax Collector Rebecca Dodd-Talbert asked that regulations include real property, an addition she said will help recoup delinquent payments from residents who assess personal property under someone else’s name or landlords who live outside the county and assess personal property elsewhere.
Justice of the Peace Ellen Varhalla, District 8, was the lone committee member during Monday’s meeting to oppose sending the ordinance to the full quorum court.
Dodd-Talbert told the committee her office has identified about $60,000 in delinquencies that could be collected if the regulations also prohibited payment of real property taxes. A state statute allows delinquent periodic fees or service charges counties bill to be collected with personal property or real property taxes.
Dodd-Talbert said improving the rate of collection will help keep rates at the $17.82 a month currently paid by the approximately 20,000 accounts that receive residential trash service in unincorporated areas of the county.
“We’re not making money off this,” Dodd-Talbert told the committee. “We’re losing money. This is not increasing anything but enforcing what’s there.”
The quorum court adopted an ordinance requiring every occupied residence to receive a trash bill after the county began residential collection in 1998. Regulations require new occupants to notify the county within the first month of occupancy. Showing proof that a residence is unoccupied stops trash service.
Trash collection isn’t included with other utility payments, making overdue balances difficult to collect, County Judge Rick Davis told the committee.
“We don’t have a water system to connect that bill to,” Davis said. “We’re sitting out here on our own, and we need some safeguards to make sure we’re not getting ripped off.”
Contract amounts for the three hauling companies the county contracts for weekly residential service are based on the number of accounts in the contractor’s sanitation zone, forcing the county to make up for the shortfall nonpayments cause.
The county writes off overdue balances after three years. Last December, $133,061 from 825 accounts with overdue balances from 2012 were canceled, Dodd-Talbert said.
Landlords can file paperwork with the tax collector to transfer payment responsibility to tenants. Dodd-Talbert said her office doesn’t charge tenants the 10-percent administrative fee allowed by state law.
Justice of the Peace Denise Marion, District 3, told the committee city constituents in her district expressed concerns that the county’s half-cent general fund sales tax subsidizes unincorporated residents’ trash collection, as 20 percent of the levy goes to the county’s solid waste division.
Davis advised her to tell constituents the sales tax subsidizes the county landfill, providing revenue that would otherwise be generated by higher landfill rates.
“They’re subsidizing cheap rates to dump trash at the landfill,” he told her. “The rates would probably be 30 percent higher (without the sales tax).”
A $447,931 transfer from the solid waste division accounts for the entirety of the 2015 houseto-house budget that administers residential trash collection. The Finance Committee approved a $457,338 transfer for the house-to-house division’s 2016 budget.
The solid waste portion of the sales tax collects about $1.6 million annually. The solid waste fund had a $3.3 million cash balance at the end of September, according to the county’s statement of operations summary.
Marion said residential collection should be self supporting and asked that the ordinance be revisited to determine if it’s improved the rate of collection, which county officials said is less than 80 percent.
“We’ll see how well we do, and see if we need to hike the rates or charge a higher deposit,” she told the committee.
Dodd-Talbert said the $30 deposit is credited back to accounts after three years. Bills paid in full at the beginning of the year are discounted 10 percent, she said, and automatic bank drafts are available. She said residents with overdue balances exceeding 90 days can agree to a payment plan that allows them to pay their personal property taxes.