Payment Changes For Trash Collection Discussed By Chester Council

CHESTER, NJ — Officials from Chester Township have moved forward with a plan to change the way that garbage collection fees are paid within the township due to rising costs.

A new agreement for continued garbage collection with Blue Diamond Disposal, Inc. will be paid for by Chester Township, which will create a municipal utility as the payment method.

Officials assured the public that garbage collection would not stop while the utility was being set up.

Blue Diamond Disposal's five-year garbage collection contract with Chester Township was set to expire at the end of December. The township prepared bid specifications for a new contract earlier this fall, which were released in November.

The bid showed a significant increase in price; the lowest quoted price among the options was approximately $924,000 per year, officials said.

This represented a significant increase over the $444,000 the town was paying per year under the previous contract and would represent a 5.4 percent tax increase.

Citing this as the reason for the switch, a review by Chester Township's third-party auditor, as well as a discussion at the Jan. 3 council meeting, pushed township officials to create a utility.

Under the current system, Blue Diamond Disposal provides both trash and recycling services to all residents in Chester Township. With the old contract, stickers were required for all trash and were sold at $16 per sheet.

According to the township, the cheapest bid option for residents included having no stickers at all, which increased the cost of the municipal budget but resulted in a lower total price.

"In this option, the amount for Chester Township to absorb in the 2023 budget is $547,000. This represents an approximate 6.16 percent tax increase which, accounting for other, state-mandated cost increases, is mathematically impossible for Chester Township to absorb under New Jersey’s appropriations cap and property tax cap," officials said.

The township has decided, under the new plan, to choose the cheapest option for residents, in which stickers are no longer required, and to pay for this through a municipal utility.

The finance department will be establishing this utility, which will serve as a permanent and dedicated source of funding for garbage collection, township officials said.

Garbage collection costs will thus be removed from the municipal budget and collected directly from residents via a separate annual bill.

The council is taking steps to solidify this decision, but it is not yet final. An official ordinance must be introduced at the Jan. 17 council meeting, with a public hearing held at a later separate meeting.