Miami-Dade used COVID relief funds to rescue trash budget. Now fees are going up
The COVID-19 pandemic worsened the already messy finances for Miami-Dade County’s garbage services, and residents should expect higher bills in the fall.
On Thursday, county commissioners approved a 5% fee increase for Solid Waste services, with the charge for residential garbage and recycling pickup increasing to $509 a year from $484.
But that $25 increase won’t cover projected deficits in the Solid Waste Department’s $350 million operating budget in the coming years. The administration of Mayor Daniella Levine Cava used $11 million in COVID relief aid to cover budget holes this year in Solid Waste, and more subsidies will be needed in 2023 as well.
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Once federal dollars aren’t available, the administration may request another fee increase in 2023 or 2024 for its more than 300,000 residential customers.
“Basically, we have a $30 million deficit,” said Michael Fernandez, the county’s Solid Waste director. He said revenues aren’t keeping up with rising costs.
Since 2007, trash fees have gone up twice: by $25 in 2018, and $20 in 2019.
When the COVID pandemic hit in the spring of 2020, Solid Waste saw a change in the garbage landscape too.
With many people working at home for much of the year, county crews found fuller trash cans in residential neighborhoods from workday waste that ordinarily would have been at the office and picked up by commercial trucks. A spike in online ordering also added a steady stream of extra cardboard to the household trash loads.
More trash meant increased costs as Miami-Dade needed more residential crew hours to pick up the household refuse. Solid Waste said residential trash volume increased 10%, amounting to an extra 79,000 tons of garbage.
“Part of the deficit was created by the pandemic,” said Jennifer Moon, head of the commission’s budget office.
Miami-Dade provides garbage pickup outside city limits, as well as for about a third of the municipalities in the county.
The $25 fee increase passed the County Commission on a 7 to 3 vote. Voting no were Commissioners René Garcia, Joe Martinez, and Rebeca Sosa, according to the vote tally produced by the commission clerk. Commissioners Eileen Higgins, Jean Monestime and Javier Souto were not present for the vote.
Miami-Dade’s new fees will appear on tax notices mailed to households this summer as part of the notification of proposed property-tax rates countywide. The fees would go into effect Oct. 1., with the start of Miami-Dade’s 2023 budget year.
Without the one-time infusion of federal dollars, Solid Waste would need a fee increase of about $50 this year in 2023, administration representatives said. That revenue need isn’t going away, and Budget Director David Clodfelter told commissioners the administration may come back in 2023 or 2024 with another request for higher fees.
“I feel like this is a Band-Aid,” Commissioner Raquel Regalado said, “but we’re still going to have a gaping wound next year.”
This story was originally published July 7, 2022 at 7:16 PM.