GAINESVILLE – The City of Gainesville may be looking for a different place to take the city’s trash in the new year.
At Thursday morning’s Gainesville City Council work session City Manager Bryan Lackey informed council members: ”Just something to give you a heads-up on, and some of you may be aware of this, but Hall County approached us in mid to late June that they were going to be changing their ‘tipping fees’ at the landfill, and that affects us because that is where we take all of our solid waste.”
Lackey said the news of the price increase came just before the start of the fiscal year, at a point in time too late to adjust the new budget.
“The ‘tipping fee’ is going to change effective in October, going from $33 a ton to $60 a ton,” Lackey detailed. “So it has a bit of a significant effect on staff.”
(Using Lackey’s numbers, that represents nearly an 82-percent increase.)
“So we looked at it…for the remainder of the fiscal year and felt we could absorb that,” Lackey said. “However, as we move into next year’s budget we’re going to have a conversation about solid waste.”
Lackey said that discussion would be on three levels: “…the level of service; obviously, the fee for the service; also…where we take our trash.”
Lackey said he asked Public Works Director Chris Rotalsky to begin researching other options for where the city takes its solid waste.
Lackey said he didn’t blame Hall County for having to increase fees, but felt the level of increase was quite significant.
“We’ll be examining that in the months to come, not any time soon. We don’t have any pre-determined things to recommend to you, but we just wanted to start re-evaluating that as we go down the road.”
