Trash pickup fee could make sense

Oahu residents already pay something for garbage pickup, financed, like most city services, through the collection of property taxes. But the reliable and convenient curbside service costs more than taxpayers are shelling out, the city government contends, so it has proposed a surcharge.

The proposed fee, tacked on to property tax bills, also could make Oahu’s trash-collection system more equitable.

Although many will cry foul at what they consider a property-tax hike disguised as a user fee, Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s core proposal has potential. The City Council, which will take up Bill 9 for the first time on Wednesday, should seriously consider the measure as it seeks answers to key questions.

The business-level fees proposed for nonprofit organizations are sure to generate opposition; a careful assessment of how much these groups should contribute is required.

The nonprofits covered by the bill include religious organizations, private schools and other groups of varying means and missions — some of which offset social-service costs otherwise borne by government agencies. While some fee is warranted, treating them the same as for-profit businesses could go too far.

Honolulu is the only county in Hawaii that treats garbage pickup as a core service, without imposing an additional fee. The monthly fee is $12 on Kauai and $18 a month on Maui. Hawaii County does not provide the service; residents pay private trash haulers or take their garbage to landfills or transfer centers themselves.

Honolulu’s Department of Environmental Services proposes revising city ordinances (Chapter 9-City-Provided Refuse Services) to charge users mainly on the size, type and number of trash receptacles they use for regular, twice-a-week service. The surcharge would kick in July 1 for nonprofit organizations and multi-unit residential buildings, and on Jan. 1 for individual households.

Under the proposal, about 160,000 Oahu households that use the standard, city-issued gray, green and blue bins would pay $10 a month, as would another 20,000 households that receive manual service, largely because the automated garbage trucks can’t traverse their neighborhoods. About 80 properties owned by nonprofits that receive automated service and 30 such properties that receive manual service would be charged the business rate of at least $75 a month. A group of about 73 nonprofits and 177 condominium, apartment and townhouse residential complexes requiring front-loader service for large dumpsters would pay $314 a month for each 3-cubic-yard receptacle. A fourth category includes about 114 business properties in and near Chinatown, which would pay at least $150 a month for the privilege of having their trash hauled away six days a week, as it has been for the past 10 years by special agreement.

The fees would apply to only users that actually have city crews pick up the trash, not those that use private haulers.

For most users, the surcharge would be collected twice a year as a line item on existing property tax bills; all the money would go into the city’s special Solid Waste Fund, according to city officials. Both those aspects are positives: There shouldn’t be a large bureaucratic expansion to collect and account for the new fees, and the money would be devoted to waste disposal on Oahu, not disappear into the general fund.

As it stands now, nonprofits whose properties are easily traversed by city crews get free pickup, while others have to pay private trash haulers, according to city officials.

For the same reason of fairness, raising property taxes isn’t the best option, because that would affect only those who pay property taxes, and not the exempt groups that do get their trash hauled away and should pay something for the service.

The City Council quickly and correctly shot down two of Caldwell’s previous money-raising ideas — hiking the fuel tax and selling exterior bus ads — but should hear him out this time. Curbside trash pickup has never been free, and a reasonable surcharge is worth considering to maintain and improve an essential city service.