STARKVILLE – Business owners in the city can expect to pay at least $15 more to have their trash picked up starting Nov. 1.
In a 4-1 vote with no discussion Tuesday, aldermen approved increasing the rates for trash pickup across the board for commercial properties. Vice Mayor Roy A. Perkins, who also represents Ward 6, was the lone no vote.
“It’s one of those things, it’s been a long time since we raised those rates,” Ward 2 Alderwoman Sandra Sistrunk told The Dispatch after the board’s meeting at City Hall. “Everybody recognizes why we need it.”
Starkville last increased pickup rates in 2023.
The impending increase comes after the board received notice in August the Golden Triangle Regional Solid Waste Management Authority, the region’s public waste disposal agency, is increasing the city’s commercial disposal rate from $32 per ton to $35 per ton at the landfill.
The city’s sanitation department will increase its base rate from $30 to $45, but the total increase for a business will depend on what size dumpster it uses and how often pickups are scheduled. Increases range from $20 more to empty a 2-cubic yard dumpster twice a week to $112 more for emptying an 8-cubic yard dumpster picked-up six times a week, which represents a range of 19% to 70% in increases.
In addition to compensating for the higher processing fee, the sanitation department hopes the fee hike will help cover other increasing costs, Sistrunk said.
“Costs have gone up. Wages have gone up. Gas and oil have gone up. Vehicle expenses have gone up,” Sistrunk said. “And so at some point, you find yourself needing a rate increase.”
The sanitation department anticipates at least $150,000 in increased revenue from the higher rate, Sistrunk wrote in a text to The Dispatch.
Perkins told The Dispatch he believes the city should have found other ways to eat some of the increased cost without passing it onto local businesses.
“The economy is in rough shape right now to have all of these pay increases right after each other,” Perkins said. “… I have a lot of people in my ward who are on fixed incomes, who have limited income, no income and it’s just hard for them to survive in this type of economy.”
Other business
In other business Tuesday, the board:
■ approved a Starkville Utilities rate increase that will see the base customer rate for electricity increase by about $2 annually until 2028, with the first rate increase effective Nov. 1;
■ approved a new chronic nuisance property ordinance, which allows the city to identify and fine properties with repeat instances of criminal conduct a minimum of $100 per day with no ceiling; and
■ voted to expand the Leisure and Recreation District by a couple blocks near City Hall and in the eastern part of the district beginning Oct. 15 while also requiring bars and restaurants to add stickers to alcoholic beverages leaving the premises.
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