3 Ways Your Trash Bill May Soon Increase in San Angelo

The CEO of Texas Disposal Systems took a swipe at Republic Services in a press release yesterday, suggesting that pressure may be on the incumbent trash collector to ask the City of San Angelo for a rate hike after losing the lawsuit to retain its monopoly in construction site roll-off waste collection.

A federal judge ruled Sept. 22 that the city had no jurisdiction to offer exclusivity for the pickup of temporary solid waste from construction job sites and threw out Republic's lawsuit against TDS.

“Republic Waste claimed during oral arguments last week before Judge Cummings that it relied on the projected revenue from the exclusive construction contract provision as part of its pricing in entering into the July 2014 contract,” Bob Gregory wrote. “In light of this, Republic Waste may choose to go back to the City with a request to raise rates on the residents, or other commercial businesses that are not protected by the 2007 statute barring exclusive construction waste contracts, to make up for the loss of expected revenue from construction projects.”

TDS officials have previously pointed out two other trash rate increases that loom over the residents and businesses within the city limits of San Angelo. Republic negotiated an automatic 2.9 percent annual rate increase in the contract signed with the city in July 2014. Also, a provision in the newly-inaugurated recycling service gives Republic the ability to tack an additional 50 cents per month onto residential bills if the combined monthly volume of recyclables collected just from residential customers in the city is less than 500 tons.

The 50-cent recycling penalty is enacted six months after recycling is implemented by Republic and evaluated every Oct. 1 of the 10-year agreement, according to the contract. If the average recycling tonnage does not meet or exceed 500 tons per month over the past year, the penalty is added to all residential bills monthly for the next year. The contract does not specify how the tonnage of recyclables is determined, only that “Provider (Republic) shall add these additional charges after evaluation. (Section 9. G.)”