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Commercial Haulers Get Rate Boost

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By DAVID SOMMER

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 23, 2008

LAND O' LAKES - It costs more to buy almost everything these days, and for users of commercial trash bins, getting rid of stuff is soon going to cost more, too.

After a recent public hearing at which no residents spoke, Pasco County commissioners unanimously agreed that haulers of such waste should get a nearly 9 percent rate increase.

About 13,000 customers, some 4,000 of them residential, will pay more starting July 1.

"It impacts anybody with a Dumpster," said Bob Sigmond, the county's director of Utilities Fiscal and Business Services.

The county-approved fee schedule for commercial pickups has not changed since June 1992. Next month's rate increase was calculated using the same formula the county used when residential - or curbside - rates were raised in late 2006, he said.

For rural residential customers using the oversize trash bins - the type emptied using a truck's fork lift - the monthly cost of one pickup per week for a 1-cubic-yard bin will increase from $20 to $22. The monthly price for bins of 2 cubic yards will go up from $29 to $32 for one pickup per week.

At the other end of the spectrum, a large business that uses an 8-cubic-yard container, with six pickups per week, will be billed $413 per month, a $34 increase over the current $379.

Seven of the 10 haulers licensed to pick up trash in Pasco provide commercial service, and all seven asked for the rate increase based on the soaring cost of fuel, Sigmond said.

County staffers used a complex formula based on the change in fuel costs coupled with the federally calculated Product Price Index to come up with the higher rate of 8.9 percent. The numbers were rounded off to even dollar amounts to help the haulers save on bookkeeping costs, he said.

The cost of curbside pickup from regular trash cans is reset every Jan. 1 based on the same formula. The current curbside residential rate of $11.24 for twice weekly pickup is not affected by the commission's recent action and will not change again until next year, Sigmond said.

As part of the June 10 vote, commissioners decided that commercial rates also will be automatically recalculated each Jan. 1.

If fuel prices or the Product Price Index drop, then residential and commercial waste hauling rates will be decreased in January, he said.

Although desirable, that is not likely, according to Harold Sample of Central Carting Disposal Inc. north of Dade City.

The July increase of 8.9 percent in monthly commercial rates was based on the cost of fuel last September, when diesel was going for $2.92 a gallon, he said. Diesel is now selling at around $4.50 per gallon.

Central Carting, which serves about 1,150 commercial and residential customers in the eastern end of the county, saw its fuel costs for the first three months of 2008 go up by about 32 percent over the same period in 2007, Sample said.

"The big thing that's driving the rate increase is the astronomical price of diesel," he said, "and trash trucks are not fuel efficient."

RAISING THEIR RATES

These are the seven waste haulers that serve commercial customers and residents with large trash bins in Pasco. County commissioners have granted them a nearly 9 percent rate increase.

• Camport Waste System

• Central Carting and Disposal

• Seaside Sanitation

• Waste Express

• Waste Management

• Waste Services of Florida

• County Recycling

Source: Pasco County Utilities

Reporter David Sommer can be reached at (727) 815-1087 or dsommer@tampatrib.com.

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