The Santa Barbara City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to raise the city’s rates for the collection of wastewater and solid waste for fiscal year 2017, which begins July 1.
Solid waste rates will be upped 2 percent based on consumer price index adjustments and processing plants increasing their tipping fees, which is charged on the quantity of waste arriving at the plants.
The city is also rebalancing the pricing of trash containers for multi-use residential and business-sector customers.
The per-gallon pricing of carts, cans, and dumpsters differ between the two customer categories, said city staff, and don’t reflect which containers are best suited to a customer type’s needs.
To fix the disparity, that rate for residential carts and cans is set to rise by 3.5 percent, while dumpsters will lower by 0.6 percent.
On the business side, carts and cans will lower by 10.6 percent, while dumpsters will rise 3.7 percent.
When the city signed a new collections contract with MarBorg Industries several years ago, city staff said, rates were adjusted to make the per-gallon rate equal.
“After this year, the price of a gallon of service in the multi-unit sector, whether it be in a cart, a can, or a dumpster, will be equal,” staff said.
As wastewater use has declined with water-use conservation, the costs of the associated capital improvement projects have risen.
Eighty-seven percent of the city’s wastewater costs are fixed, according to city staff, meaning that those costs cannot be cut as a response to conservation.
Council’s vote raises the rate 5.5 percent for residential and commercial customers. The increase will cover operations, maintenance, and the rehabilitation and improvement of the wastewater system, staff said.
A 4-percent increase is the normal annual change, city staff said.
The maximum bill a single-family residence would pay, for instance, would rise from $45.36 to $47.87.
Water fees are on deck for changes too, with a City Council public hearing planned for Aug. 9.
Water Systems Manager Cathy Taylor said that new fees are proposed for covering reviews and inspections of water systems for new development projects, damage to city infrastructure, and costs for time, material, and water lost due to damage and repairs.
In May, Water Resources Manager Joshua Haggmark said that such fees would be intended primarily to ensure that contractors are more careful when working with the infrastructure.
Changes to current fees related to materials, labor, and installations are also proposed, Taylor said.
— Noozhawk staff writer Sam Goldman can be reached at sgoldman@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.