Is Melrose's Trash Fee Higher Than Necessary?

Melrose residents currently pay $200 a year in trash fees, but is that more than what's necessary to fund trash collection in the city?

That's the question raised by Alderman at-Large Don Conn, who asked City Hall to present the Board of Aldermen with budget numbers relative to the fee and trash disposal for the past five fiscal years, numbers presented to the aldermen's Appropriations Committee last Thursday.

According to those numbers compiled by City Auditor and Chief Financial Officers Patrick Dello Russo, not including the incomplete fiscal 2012 year, the city has averaged $1,598,480 in revenue from the trash fee over the previous four fiscal years, during which time the trash fee has stayed steady at $200.

Meanwhile, trash tonnage has dropped from 9,637 to 8,408 during that same time period; the city's "tipping fee" cost—what Melrose pays for disposal per ton—has gone from $73.71 to $62.26, and tipping expenses dropped from $710,343 to $524,323.

The city's tipping expense are project to be lower again at the end of this fiscal year on June 30, even though the tipping fee is up slightly to $63.02, due to trash tonnage dropping again.

Conn noted during Thursday's meeting that the number of Melrose ratepayers paying the trash fee each fiscal year is "remarkably consistent," hovering around 7,600 per year.

Including the $420,000 that Melrose will pay , Conn calculated that the city will spend approximately $936,000 this coming fiscal year for trash disposal.

"I’d like to have what you consider to be the cost (of trash disposal)," he said to Dello Russo. "I divided it by 7,600 and I don’t come up with $200 per household. I come up with a figure that’s significantly less. I could be wrong, I’ve been wrong before. If I’m not wrong, I’d like to try and calibrate the trash fee ... I think it’s critical we collect the data and make sure there's a nexus between the fee we’re charging and the cost of the service for which we’re charging the fee."

In the memo containing the budget numbers Conn requested and submitted to the aldermen from Dello Russo, who agreed to return to the aldermen with a further breakdown of the cost of the city's trash disposal, he noted that "these costs do not represent the full cost of solid waste operations incurred by the city."

In response to a question from Alderman at-Large Ron Seaboyer, deputy superintendent and said that the tipping fee only covers disposal of trash, not the gasoline spent to haul it to the Covanta Energy transfer station in Haverhill nor the labor to pick it up.

Scenna added that $16 drop in the city's tipping fee between fiscal 2009 and fiscal 2010 resulted from the city changing its trash contract and instead of bringing it to Danvers, where it would then be transported to the Haverhill transfer station, Melrose trucks drove the trash pickup directly to Haverhill. Also, increased recycling has led to the reduced trash tonnage, he said.

The trash fee has been $200 per year since at least 2005; it was originally instituted at $125 per year in 2002.