LR increasing monthly trash charge by $1.03

Board also OKs ’13 budget with pay raises reaching 3%

— Little Rock residents will see an increase in their monthly solid waste disposal bill starting in January.

The Little Rock Board of Directors approved a $1.03 per month increase in the fee without discussion Tuesday.

The board also approved its 2013 budget after a short discussion of outside agency funding. The $171 million budget passed by a vote of 7 to 2, with Ward 6 Director Doris Wright and Ward 7 Director B. J. Wyrick voting against the budget and Ward 2 Director Ken Richardson voting present.

The budget includes an estimated 3 percent raise for union and uniformed employees and a merit increase for nonunion employees of up to 3 percent.

The solid waste disposal fee increase caused debate for several weeks and was reduced twice before being finally reduced to $1.03 per month to pay for the increased cost of the changes to the city’s recycling program that went into effect in April. Several board members said they didn’t want to increase waste fees when so many other fees were being increased in the coming year, including increases in sewer rates, water rates, a voter-approved citywide sales tax increase that started in January and a voter-approved extension of the capital improvement millage.

The current solid waste disposal fee is $20.99 a month for a resident with one trash can and one recycling bin. The increase will make the monthly fee $22.02, not including sales taxes.

The original request included a $2.25 per month increase in 2013 and an additional $2 per month in 2014. That was reduced to $1.75 per month in 2013 alone, which was lowered again to $1.03 a month in 2013.

City Manager Bruce Moore said the original increases were designed to allow the waste disposal department to catch up on capital projects, including the purchase of trucks and the planning and building of new cells in the landfill. The city borrowed about $6.4 million in reserve funds from the Waste Disposal Department during the recession to prevent having to lay off employees and institute austerity measures.

Moore said the city has paid back more than half of that money, about $3.5 million, over two years by helping purchase trucks and through other expenditures for the department made from the city’s general fund.

The city board voted to absorb the additional costs for recycling for one year in 2011. Staff members said the $1.03 per month increase will bring the total cost of recycling to $2.76 per month — the cost charged by the contractor and the amount Sherwood and North Little Rock residents are already being charged.

The board also approved the 2013 budget after a short discussion. A representative from the firefighters union spoke against approving the budget because of ongoing negotiations between the union and the city.

Passing the budget “doesn’t hinder my ability to go forward in these discussions,” Moore said. “We’re continuing to have dialogue. Those discussions have not been terminated or addressed at this point.”

At-Large Director Joan Adcock asked about the city’s plan to give $100,000 to the Metro Little Rock Alliance, which operates out of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce office in Little Rock. The city did not give any money to the agency in 2012, according to the group’s contribution list.

The group’s total budget was $177,000 this year, and Chamber Chief Executive Officer Jay Chesshir said the plan has been to try to increase that budget to $300,000 or more.

“That group was operating at 65 percent of their budget for the last few years because of the economy,” he said. “This is simply a marketing entity which we have used since 2005. It can market us as a community of more than 1 million people instead of as smaller communities to attract larger opportunities and larger companies.”

Adcock, who raised questions about the expenditure several times, said she wanted to make sure the public understood the expenditure before the board voted.

Other expenditures include new hires for police, fire and code enforcement departments, and a 15 percent increase in employee health-care expenditures. The budget also includes a $697,000 increase for the Central Arkansas Transit Authority, partly to pay for two new bus routes.

Arkansas, Pages 9 on 12/19/2012

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