VOLUME-BASED BILLING COULD COST MORE

For most people in Cape Girardeau, volume-based trash billing is likely to increase monthly trash fees even more than a proposed $1.46-per-month flat hike proposed by the city staff.

Members of the city's Solid Waste Task Force met Tuesday to discuss a request by the city council that they come up with a volume-based billing system for trash service.

The task force also was charged with considering other cost-cutting measures in the council's effort to freeze the current $10.54 monthly trash fee.

But task force members said it will be impossible for the city to avoid offsetting increased solid-waste costs.

"We addressed, I believe, every one of these issues before," said task force member Kathleen Sokolowski. "Citizens need to realize they have to pay for the services they receive.

"That's why government is in the mess it's in today; because we're providing services without making people pay for it."

Task force member Robert Herbst, a former city councilman, said increased solid-waste costs are an unchanging fact of life as the federal government continues to mandate more restrictive and expensive regulations for waste disposal.

"It's politically popular for (the city council) to sit up there and say, `Cut costs,'" Herbst said. "But how the hell are we going to do it? What we've got is a lack of action on a perceived difficult decision that needs to be made."

The task force agreed that volume-based billing was needed to ensure residents proper billing for their trash service and to encourage recycling.

But Assistant City Manager Doug Leslie said the fixed costs associated with solid waste, regardless of the volume produced by individual households, will bar any great trash-fee relief for most people.

Based on 1990 census figures, less than 19 percent of the city's population is comprised of elderly people who stand most to gain from volume-based billing.

Also, about 81 percent of the city's households contain three people or less, which means the fixed costs of solid waste would have to be incurred by those people who already have small families and likely don't produce a large volume of trash.

Sokolowski said she favored a volume-based program that would set a base cost below the current trash fee and compensate with added per-bag costs.

The solid-waste fee now pays for weekly trash and recycling collections, up to three bags of trash.

The billing option Sokolowski said she preferred would set a $10 base rate for all households, which would include collection of a single bag. Additional bags, or stickers for bags, would be purchased at 51 cents per bag.

That would make the monthly trash bill $12.21 for customers using two bags a week and $14.43 for those using three. Currently the city sets a three-bag weekly limit per household.

Task force member Vincent Seyer said such a program would reduce the amount of trash the city has to handle.

"If you implement volume-based billing, you'll take care of recycling," Seyer said.

But Herbst said the overall costs to the city are the same whether it hauls trash to the landfill or recycles it.

He suggested the city charge for leaf collection, spring and fall clean-up and other solid-waste services. He also asked whether such things as removal of storm debris ought to be earmarked from the public works budget rather than funded through solid-waste fees.

But Leslie said state laws require that trees, limbs and other yard waste be composted, which is handled by the city's solid-waste division. He also said that only 27 cents of the total $12 proposed monthly fee would go toward the leaf collection and composting programs.

The task force will meet again Jan. 11 to formally adopt a recommendation for the council regarding volume-based billing.