Selma Public Works Committee to recommend adding $3 fee to garbage bill for lower income neighbors

The Selma Public Works Committee plans to ask the city council to add a $3 fee to the garbage bill to cover the cost of residents who can’t afford to pay for the service.

The vote came when the public works committee met April 13 to finalize the paperwork for Preferred Waste Solutions to take over curbside garbage pickup on Oct. 1.

The city has for years covered the cost of curbside garbage pickup for residents the city determines are unable to pay for the service. The cost is over $200,000, according to Selma Mayor Johnny Moss III.

PWS and the city agreed in their contract that no more than 10% of the customers would be exempted from paying for what the contract calls “solid waste” service.

PWS will charge each customer $25 a month for curbside pickup once the service is underway. Customers will pay a startup fee for a container and two months of service to get the service started.

Moss and the committee agreed at the meeting that the city can no longer afford to absorb the cost of providing curbside pickup to hundreds of customers. They agreed to add a fee, which they called a franchise fee, to every customer’s bill to cover the cost of providing the service to their less fortunate neighbors.

The committee, Moss, PWS CEO Julia Isaac and City Attorney Graham Mosley performed some quick math to determine how much the fee should be. Here’s what they came up with:

Assume PWS will have 5,000 customers. (Customers are still signing up, so that’s an assumption.)

More from this section

How has social media transformed cooking?

Christopher Wardle Sentenced To Four Years For Witness Tampering, Violating Protection Order

Is that cat just playing? Study warns it may be causing distress

If 10% of the customers will be allowed to receive the service at no cost, that’s 500 “exempt” customers.

Multiply 500 by $25, and you get $12,500 worth of “free” service that must be covered somehow.

Now multiply $3 by 4,500 – the number of paying customers (5,000 minus the 500 exempt) – and you get $13,500 collected from the franchise fee. That covers the cost for exempt customers with $1,000 left over.

The committee discussed recommending a $2 monthly fee, but if you plug that number into the math problem, you’ll see that the city would come up short.

The city of Selma will announce what documents citizens will have to present to be considered for no-cost garbage service.

The committee and PWS went over the contract to make sure the contract, the request for proposal (bid) that was advertised and the city ordinance describing the service are aligned.

District 6 Councilperson Ashley Ervin chaired the committee.