By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
City council members will consider increases in all residential and commercial solid waste rates and fees for the coming year.
Interim Finance Director Roxy Soto gave a presentation about the proposed rate increases during the council’s last regular meeting in July. When it meets today, the council will consider scheduling a public hearing on the proposed new rates.
Soto went over the current solid waste rates and fees, then reviewed the proposed new rates during the July meeting. She said the last time the city raised its solid waste rates was in 2019.
She told the council the term of the contract between the city and Platform Waste Solutions, the city’s contractor for household waste pickup and operation of the landfill, is from Oct. 1, 2026, through Sept. 30, 2031.
“The cost (of the contract) is $5,484,551.64,” Soto said.
Soto went over some of the changes in the new contract with Platform, noting that mulching and electronic waste removal were added. She said front-load dumpsters of three cubic yards were removed, and front-load dumpsters of six cubic yards and eight cubic yards were added. A Platform representative will be at the scale house at the landfill screening waste.
“The education and incentive program (in the contract) was revised to remove the $10,000 towards local park enhancement. Instead, Platform will partner with local schools to host an art contest focused on environmental themes. Platform will be servicing the Diez y Seis de Septiembre and the Cinco de Mayo events. … Also new equipment will be purchased by Platform, something we requested, and Platform and the city of Del Rio will meet once a month,” Soto said.
Soto next went over rates.
Soto said for the residential trash pickup rates, the city currently charges $20.54 a month. For residential trash pickup outside the city limits, the city charges $24.65. For the additional cart, the city charges $5.72, and for an additional cart outside the city limits, the city charges $6.87.
Soto said, “So based on the current contract that we have, with the estimated cost of $5.4 million, and also the operations cost that the city is required to budget for, it’s an estimated about $3 million to pay for personnel, supplies, contractual, transfers, debt service. It’s an estimated $8.4 million that the city needs to generate, and in order to do so, we are proposing these rates here.”
“Residential trash would be $25.25. Residential trash pickup outside the city limits, $30.30. An additional cart, $7.05, and the additional cart outside the city limits, $8.45, and here on this last column you can see the difference. For a customer, the impact would be an additional $4.71, and for outside the city limits, the impact would be $5.65, and then the additional cart would be a $1.33 increase, and the additional cart outside the city limits would be $1.58 increase,” she added.
Soto went through some of the other solid waste rates charged by the city, including those for commercial accounts, which depend on the size of the dumpster, measured in cubic yards, and the frequency of the pickups. She reiterated under the new rate schedule, the city will discontinue the three-cubic-yard dumpsters and add six- and eight-cubic-yard dumpsters.
Councilman LeRoy Briones asked if Soto could provide some examples of who might use the new six- and eight-cubic-yard categories. He was told these might be used by businesses like McDonald’s, Whataburger and Starbucks.
Public Works Director Greg Velazquez stepped to the podium and said he believed the larger dumpster sizes will prove a benefit to many of the city’s commercial customers.
Briones asked about the proposed cost increases for the businesses being listed, and Soto said businesses will still be able to decide if they want a smaller cubic-yard dumpster and have multiple pickups or go to a larger dumpster with fewer pickups.
Briones added, “The rate increase would obviously help the city. As a business owner, it can also be competitive for them or it could be cost effective for them to go to a bigger unit. I was asking what the difference in the numbers would be for them, because obviously, we’re having a new product that we’re offering that we didn’t have before. As a business owner, I would say, how much am I currently paying now to how much is it going to go up. That’s the number we don’t have right now.”
Soto said as an example, if a customer currently pays for a four-cubic-yard dumpster at $192.95 per pickup and had two pickups per week, that would be $385.90, but if they went to an eight-cubic-yard dumpster with a single pickup every week, it would cost $308.
“In this scenario, it would be more cost-effective,” Soto said.
Following the discussion, Mayor Al Arreola asked how the information about the rate increases would be disseminated.
Soto noted there are about 350 customers who currently use the three-cubic-yard dumpsters and said they would be informed about the changes and different rates and options. She said there are several budget workshops scheduled at which the issue would be discussed, as well as a public hearing on the rate changes.
Briones asked how Del Rio’s solid waste rates compared to “cities around us.”
Soto said, “We were relatively the same or higher on residential, and on commercial, the $45 per ton, we were average.”
Interim City Manager Manuel Chavez said, “The bottom line is we’ve already established how much it’s going to cost for our contract with Platform, how much it’s going to cost the city to run the operations there at the site, along with our recycling program and our brush pickup program, so closer to $9 million, so we need to recover that, right? How we recover that is up to us, and again, this is one option, by increasing these rates pretty much at the same rate between residential and commercial.”
Arreola asked since the city has a five-year contract with Platform, if the rate increase could be spread over the next five years.
Chavez said the rates being proposed would cover the city’s cost for operating over the coming fiscal year and “the contract calls for a CPI (consumer price index) increase, so their contract might increase next year.”
“This is just to get us up to FY 2026-2027,” Chavez added.
Councilwoman Carmen Gutierrez asked how many residential customers the city currently has.
Soto said there are currently 16,000 residential customers.
Mayor Pro Tem Randy Quinones said he believed the city should consider “doing small increments per year” in raising the rates.
Quinones also said he would like the pros and cons of the city running the solid waste collection and landfill operation.
After some discussion of that suggestion, Arreola asked how much new revenue the city would generate from the proposed new rates if the council adopted them.
Soto replied, “We’re estimating for residential we would earn approximately $4.1 million and for commercial, $3.2 million, and for the landfill charges, $960,000.”
Councilwoman Elsa Reyes commented, “I just feel it’s unfortunate that we come to where rates like this that haven’t been increased in years, for whatever reason, and then the citizens of our community get stuck with this increase, but we have to start somewhere and start to fix the issues that we have. I surely don’t want to be a part of this council and have to deal again with what you all had to deal with the water (rate increases), and I understand that, but we have to start somewhere.”
Soto finished her presentation and informed the council about “next steps.”
She noted on Tuesday the council will set its first hearing on the proposed new rates, with another public hearing set for Sept. 25, with adoption set to be considered the same day.
The proposed new rates would go into effect Oct. 5.
The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com
