Published April 15, 2021

By MAUREEN DOHERTY

NORTH READING — Trash fees will be going up incrementally over the next few years to make up for the deficit in that department.

Town Administrator Michael Gilleberto explained at Monday night’s Select Board meeting that the adjustments in the quarterly trash fee being proposed are due to the increased costs of both the contract with the hauler, JRM, and the per ton tipping fee charged by Covanta in Haverhill.

Gilleberto said their recommendation “shows a multi-year plan for the fee during the life of the agreement with JRM. Based on the current two-barrel collection with one bulk item per week and unlimited dual stream recycling, the fee would increase from $68 per quarter on July 1 to $75 per quarter.”

This works out to an increase of $28 total in the first year, from $272 to $300. “It would not fully cover the cost of the increase in the first year. It would rely on some funding from the stabilization fund for solid waste,” Gilleberto said.

“We would then recommend another increase for FY23, effective July 1, 2022, to $80 per quarter, and that would align us with the actually annual cost.”

An additional $5 per quarter fee increase means residents would be charged a total of $320 per year by the end of the second year of the agreement with JRM. Smaller fee increases averaging about $3 per year would be in effect for the third, fourth and fifth year of the contract, Gilleberto said.

“It is a two-year phasing-in of increasing the fee. I think we have the capacity to do that, but more importantly, we are able to regenerate the (solid waste) stabilization fund over the life of the agreement if we continue to match the fee with the annual cost, which ends up being roughly a $3 per year increase in FY 24, FY25 and FY26,” the T.A. explained.

Under the current world conditions in the volatile trash and recycling markets, the board members viewed the five-year agreement the town was able to negotiate with JRM as very competitive. Select Board Vice Chairwoman Liane Gonzalez, who is the board’s liaison to the committee negotiating the new solid waste contract, said they researched the fees charged to other communities and found the town is getting a much better deal than others in the region. In some towns the fee is much higher and they only get their trash picked up every other week.

A downside to privatizing trash pick up is increased truck traffic coming through town all week, Gonzalez said. “If they don’t take it does it get dumped somewhere and does our town get trashy looking?” she asked.

Select Board member Vincenzo Stuto suggested that going forward when setting fee structures the town should factor in inflation costs because if the fees go up in smaller increments it won’t be as shocking to the residents. “A lot of towns do not index for inflation and no one talks about it,” he said, adding, “a lot of anxiety is the sticker shock when it comes all at once. It has got to go up little by little every year.”

All of the board members had received letters from at least two residents concerned with the trash fee and the apparent abuse of the town’s agreement of a two-barrel weekly limit plus one bulk item.

Select Board member Rich Wallner asked, “Even after we get this deal in place what will we do to solve this problem?” He noted that many people also use “oversized barrels” as those two barrels are not supposed to be larger than 34 gallons each.

Stuto said it comes down to educating the public. One resident called him and suggested that it would be beneficial to educate new residents when they move to town because many of them believe that since they pay a quarterly fee they can curb anything they want.

“We were given ample warning that there would be significant changes and it is not a whimsical decision that is being made,” Select Board Chairwoman Kate Manupelli said. “I concur with Mr. Stuto that we will have to keep up with the cost. We have a contract, so we can plan for the length of the contract.”

Gilleberto said that an even more significant challenge has been the fee charged to a town when the hauler contends that the recycling has been contaminated. “We have a proposal that would not subject us to the fines that other communities have,” he said. There is also value to having the hauler leave a note attached to an item that must be left at the curb. “The restrictions are not understood until something is left at the curb,” he added.

Utilities Superintended Mark Clark explained the reason behind one point made by a resident in a letter submitted regarding a discount being applied to the trash fees of some residents. Clark said this is a 50 percent discount given to qualifying veterans who annually apply to the Board of Assessors to determine if they qualify for real estate tax exemptions, such as if they are disabled.

“If they do qualify the rules give them a 50 percent fee reduction” on their trash fee as well, Clark said. The assessors send the list to the DPW which applies the deduction. Also, although municipal departments and the schools do not pay a fee for their trash removal if an unusual item like a piano needs to be removed the DPW will receive a bill for it and pass it on to the schools.

Dan Greenberg, a member of the Recycling Committee, said if 43 percent of the towns in the state participate in some form of “pay as you throw” it would be a good idea to look into it again. “In general, it moves 30 percent of the weight of solid waste from the trash bin to the recycling bin,” he said of PAYT.

Tony LoRe, 21 Strawberry Lane, was one of the residents who wrote letters to the board about the excess trash he has observed at the curb of many homes during his walks and provided photos of the abuses.

“The current system isn’t working and the numbers show that. Back in 2013 we went to a three-barrel limit and in 2014 we went to a two-barrel limit. Between calendar year 2013 and 2016 our total trash quantity went down by 12 percent or about 450 tons. Between 2017 and 2019, trash has gone up nine percent, so clearly we were enforcing the two-barrel limit in the initial years and have gotten away from that, and that has added another $50,000 to our disposal costs,” LoRe said.

The fact that the “commodities market for recycled goods has fallen through the floor for the past three years” is also “substantial reason” for the increases in fees, Greenberg said.

Greenberg added that it was “unusual for JRM to not be imposing the contamination fee” to the town for recycled goods deemed contaminated “in the current contractual environment. I talked to many people at DEP and in other towns, and this team has negotiated a great deal.”