The St. James City Council was presented with an ordinance on Oct. 14 which would increase rates for solid waste collection.

City Administrator Leeann DeMouche presented the council with information regarding the need for a rate increase as costs continue to increase. DeMouche told the council the rates presented had already been recommended by the utility board and she asked only a first reading be held during the meeting to allow the city to present further information to the public as well as holding a public meeting to allow for citizen comment on the proposal.

“We are hitting all the services in this rate increase, residential, commercial, bulk, and large commercial, which are the dumpsters,” DeMouche said. “I will tell you, the bulk is not in your code. Even though we have been charging for bulk pickup, these rates for bulk were never approved by any council. So, that is another reason I am bringing that to you as well.”

Currently, the city offers curbside trash pickup, recycling and bulk pickup services. Solid waste collection and recycling are provided weekly and conducted for all residents who live inside the city limits.

“We do not receive any revenue from recycling,” DeMouche explained. “Any recycling we take to Rolla, we don’t receive any money back for that.”

Even when residents don’t utilize the recycling program, she said, the recycling truck still drives down each street to make collections, which has a cost to the city.

Bulk items are charged individually when pickups are made. The city also provides a spring clean up day where some larger items are collected from the curbside at no additional cost to the customer.

DeMouche said the city has finished the rollout of the new 96-gallon roll out trash carts and there have also been 70 additional carts, which have been distributed to customers who requested a second cart at an additional rate of $6.

Small commercial customers are primarily businesses which don’t have the space for a larger dumpster. Those dumpsters are used mostly by industrial businesses or larger commercial businesses.

DeMouche said her plan for the rate increases on all services will be over the next three years to reduce the impact on customers, but she said the city is in a position where an increase is required to continue services as the city has not raised rates to keep up with the increasing costs of business. The city has not raised rates on residential or small or large commercial rates since 2018. The city has also only raised the residential rate by $2.50 and $1.58 for small commercial over the past 30 years.

The city is also seeing increasing costs for employee insurance, vehicle maintenance and landfill tipping fees.

“The landfill tipping fees, in 2024, the company imposed a 22 percent increase in tipping fees,” DeMouche said. “That has been the bulk of the expenses.”

The two main costs to the city is insurance, which is 45 percent of the solid waste budget each year, and the tipping fees, which accounts for 31 percent of the same budget.

In the rate proposal, DeMouche recommended raising the residential rate from $11.90 per month to $17.73. Business solid waste collection was recommended to change from $13.23 to $19.71. Dumpster collection fees are based on the size of the dumpster and the number of times collected from a business, with those fees currently ranging from $32.64 for a one cubic yard dumpster up to $142.32 for a six cubic yard dumpster. The proposal would bring those rates up significantly over the next three years, if the proposal were approved.

DeMouche told the council there are also plans to purchase new vehicles for the solid waste department, as there are some aging vehicles in the fleet, which will need to be replaced and the new rates could help with purchasing those vehicles once the final rates are implemented in 2028.

“This is what I presented to the utility board,” DeMouche said. “We did three years out. The first year, we are requesting a 49 percent increase. The second year was three percent. Then, the third year was six percent.”

There are currently 1,565 residential customers and 90 commercial curbside customers.

The city, DeMouche said, conducted a market analysis comparing similarly sized cities as well as surrounding communities when determining the proposed rates, with the proposed rates matching the market cost to this region.

Splitting up the rate increases over a three-year window, DeMouche explained, will help the city catch up on its costs while the city tries to limit the financial impact on the customer rather than having one extremely large rate increase all at once.

In 2026, should the rates be implemented, the solid waste department is expected to have less than $50,000 in its fund balance, with no money going toward the reserve fund for emergencies. In 2027, DeMouche said, the department would have a negative balance as expenses catch up to the costs and 2028 will be the year the city will break even and can then begin to grow balances until the department can cover its costs as well as beginning to generate money for the reserve fund.

After a lengthy presentation, the council unanimously approved a first reading of the ordinance and it will be put on next month’s agenda for a final decision. DeMouche said the city will be sending out information about the rate changes in customer’s utility bills, putting information on the city’s website as well as on social media. A public hearing will also be held later this month, with more details to be released.