Waste pickup tax increase to be on ballot; residents will pay cost one way or another

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Maplewood officials voted unanimously on Tuesday to place on the ballot on April 3, an additional tax of 10 cents per $100 of evaluation to cover the rising costs of trash and recycling pickup in the city.

City Department of Public Works Director Anthony Traxler said if voters don’t approve the tax the city will need to bill residents to cover the, currently, approximately $280,000 budget deficit, coming out of the general fund. If the measure fails residents will be billed approximately $97 annually in monthly payments, he said.

Update: The city plans to send out all the information related to the proposition for residents. It will be sent it out in advance of election day to give residents ample time to review the information and ask questions.

Residents and commercial tax payers already pay a tax for pickup; approved in 2004.

Traxler said in many other municipalities where residents are billed they’re paying more for the service than if they paid a tax. He said a tax is cheaper because the cost is spread over a variety of payers: single-family and multi-family housing, and commercial payers.

An Allied Waste employee picks up trash on Marietta Avenue in Maplewood.

7 COMMENTS

  1. FROM ABOVE: “Residents and commercial tax payers already pay a tax for pickup; approved in 2004” Commercial tax payers pay the tax for pick up but DO NOT get pick up service. They have to pay an independent hauler on top of the tax. Also, they have NO VOTE on tax increases, that are loaded onto them. Just sayin’

  2. There’s probably a better, more granular way to charge for actual services provided to each residence. Something that utilizes newer technologies

  3. Or here’s a thought, let the home owners decide how their trash gets picked up. I don’t need a weekly pick up. We produce about 1 or two bags of trash a week. A little bit more right now as we have a kid in diapers. We could easily get by with every other week or once a month pick up. The current situation takes the actual customer out of the equation, so the waste company raises prices and we all just have to deal with it. What if we all had the opportunity to cut back or choose a different company or way of doing waste management.

    • You want once a month pick up with with all those diapers. I hope You don’t live near me. Rodents will love your house.

    • If your house is appraised at $130,000.00, its assessment for tax purposes is 19% of the appraised value. The tax rate is based on the assessed value, so this would result in an increase in property tax of $24.70 based on a 10 cent per $100 rate.

      The following link is to the St. Louis County website regarding assessed versus appraised value: https://revenue.stlouisco.com/common/Glossary.aspx

      Based on this math, you would end up having your trash and recycling picked up once a month instead of once a week for the approximately the same amount. Unfortunately, there are fixed costs of running regular routes, fuels costs and dumping fees. There are also issues with coordination of scheduling pick ups and billing that would complicate implementation of a flexible model. If we had multiple companies doing trash and recycling, there would be redundant use of fuel and more frequent pickup disturbances.

  4. So if your house is appraised at 130,000$, your tax would increase by 130$. How is that cheaper than the 97$ billed. Unless of course your house is appraised under 97,000$. Also can you clarify–“residents and commercial tax payers already pay a tax for pickup approved in 2004”. If residents are already paying a tax, we are already paying for trash removal. So why are they saying we have free trash removal. And how will this cost be shared with apartments? Will the apartment owner be billed 97$ for each apartment? One apartment generates the same amount of trash as a single family home, so if an apartment building has 10 apartments, shouldn’t they pay 97$ for each apartment? This should be clearly defined in the proposal we are to vote on, apartment dwellers should pay the same as home owners.

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