The Warrenton City Council Tuesday night approved an ordinance to charge city residents for trash collection.

The ordinance, drafted by City Attorney Chris Graville, won’t go into effect until the  beginning of the year.

All residential customers will pay for their trash collection.

The rates, agreed upon with Wilson Waste Hauling, which has the contract for trash collection service through December 2011, will be about $9.30 a month per customer.

That rate includes a 55-cent per month billing fee from the city to cover the cost of processing bills and payments.

Senior citizens will have the 55-cent fee waived starting at age 62. One-hundred and four residents are listed as seniors for trash service.

Residents in multifamily housing complexes also will receive a 50-cent per month discount, which the city negotiated with Wilson to receive.

Terri Thorn, the city’s director of operations and finance officer, said the city’s billing fee is based on actual cost, and therefore isn’t considered a tax.

Government entities aren’t allowed to establish new taxes without voter approval under the Hancock Amendment to the Missouri Constitution.

“This is an initial amount. We’re not going to know what the exact cost will be until we have some solid data. This is our best projection,” Thorn said.

Mayor Greg Costello said most residents understand the reasoning behind paying for trash collection.

“We do have a budget and it’s significantly less because of declining sales tax,” Costello said.

“It is surprising that more of the public is aware that trash service is a luxury and has been provided at no cost,” he said. “I haven’t really heard a lot of negative comments.”

Aldermen agreed. “The vast majority of people I spoke to understand our problem and they understand we’ve got to do what we’ve got to do,” Ward 2 Alderman Fred Flake said.

Ward I Alderman Dan Dieckmann asked about having multifamily complexes, such as apartment complexes, pay rates based on a per-dumpster service.

“We’re paying $7.50, or possibly more, per unit, instead of just a per-dumpster price. We might be able to save money if we look at alternatives,” Dieckmann said.

Dieckmann said the system might be unfair to apartment complex owners, who may have a large amount of vacant units at any given time.

Under the ordinance adopted Tuesday, vacant residential property can have trash service suspended so long as the property is vacant for more than 60 days.

Thorn said dumpster services might be cheaper, but the only data the city had received on that alternative was erroneous.

At the Sept. 21 public hearing, Kent Hicks gave a handout to the board from Christian Brothers Disposal, according to the minutes.

That handout discussed dumpster prices not by units, but per dumpster.

Hicks said that price structure could save the city money.

Thorn Tuesday said the figures Hicks provided didn’t include the same level of service, however.

She also noted that per-dumpster pricing means the dumpsters are picked up on a collection schedule and any extra trash is typically left sitting outside the dumpsters, trashing the area.

“In those cases, your dumpster enclosure becomes your dumpster whenever you have too much trash,” Thorn said.

Dieckmann asked if multifamily complexes would be able to bid their own collection like commercial properties.

Graville said the city’s current contract is for all residential collection.

“The most efficient way to do this, with all the figures (aldermen) have been inundated with, is to look at the options when we go to bid once the current contract is up in 2011,” Graville said.

“Everyone understands we do need to fine-tune this, but with the timing of it and the contract we have, we’re looking at 2011 until we can really look at making some of these changes,” Costello said.

Dieckmann pressed for a mandatory recycling section in the ordinance.

Under the city’s current contract and new ordinance, those wishing to utilize recycling services will have to pay a $2.25 a month fee.

Dieckmann said he thought that would cause the number of people recycling to drop.

Ward 3 Alderman John Clark said those who recycle now will continue to recycle.

“We know the people who do recycle are passionate about it and will do it no matter what,” Clark said.

Until the beginning of next year, the city will continue to pay for residential trash service, including the $2.25 fee to recycle.

“In the short term, I don’t see a way to solve that issue,” said Keith Wilson, president of Wilson Waste Systems. “There will be some issues moving forward with recycling.”

City officials said only 50 percent of residential customers currently utilize recycling services.

Wilson said his company picks up about 23 to 25 tons of recycling material from Warrenton residents each month.

“If you really watch what you’re doing, you can reduce your trash volume by up to 70 percent a month by recycling,” Wilson said.

Graville encouraged aldermen to adopt the ordinance without any sort of mandatory recycling program and revisit the issue later.

“We’re going to be involved in a continuous process of training staff on billing, preparing bid specifications for our next contract and then bidding it in the fall,” Graville said.

The city held a public forum in September regarding the repeal of the free residential trash service.

Warrenton residents haven’t paid for trash service in over 30 years.

Commercial properties currently pay for trash service and contract for that service on an individual business basis.

The decision came following an anticipated $504,877 shortfall in the general fund budget.

The city has depended on a 1 percent sales tax to cover the cost of the trash service, but in recent years has turned to taking funds from other departments to subsidize trash collection costs.

To offset the deficit in this fiscal year, $594,112 has been transferred from several areas, including park management fees ($165,965), tourism special events ($58,247), cemetery costs ($1,900), capital sales tax ($185,400) and water/sewer fund ($182,600).

“We really have had to rob Peter to pay Paul,” Costello said.

Charging for tax collection wouldn’t produce much extra revenue for the city after the current fiscal year.

This year, the city could see an extra $100,000 which would be freed up from the existing budget.

In subsequent years, the trash billing and fees would simply cover the cost of those services.

“It wouldn’t necessarily be a windfall for us,” said Phil Tallo, board president.

“Really, all we’re going to be doing here is alleviating some of the load until the economy gets better,” Ward 3 Alderman Don Broering said.

As the economy recovers, the trash collection figures should enable the service to pay for itself via residential bills.

Thorn noted that the surplus adding the collection fees this year would generate couldn’t be used for water or sewer improvements.

Costello said the city has so many road and sidewalk improvements it needs that the $100,000 wouldn’t cover them all.

“Those are kept in separate funds,” Thorn said.

In the past two fiscal years, the city has seen sales tax revenue decline by approximately $285,000 in the general fund and has seen other taxes, permits and license fees drop by around $60,000.