The Flathead County Commission at its Aug. 20 meeting voted in favor of a fee increase for the county landfill. The proposal submitted by the Flathead County Solid Waste District (FCSWD) included raising both landfill tipping fees and annual residential assessment fees by 15% this fall, with additional 3% increases in each of the next four years.
“The Solid Waste District has not raised our rates since 2007,” Flathead County Public Works Director Dave Prunty told the commissioners. But, “a couple of years ago I started to see some things in budget preparation that I was starting to get a little concerned about.”
The FCSWD board hired an engineer and sub-consultant to perform a rate study and forecast future operational and capital expenses. The resulting report included the “most extensive spreadsheet” Prunty said he’d seen in his career, projecting several different scenarios of growth paired with option for revenue increases.
Four options for rate increases were offered to the FCSWD board, which ultimately recommended the 15% increase with four additional annual bumps.
Beginning Nov. 1, the landfill tip fee will increase from $31.05 per ton to $35.71 per ton; the annual residential assessment fee will increase from $80.73 to $92.84; and the fee for green waste, which includes brush and tree limbs, will increase from $31.05 per ton to $55 per ton. Both the tip fee and assessment fees will see additional 3% increases each November for the next four years.
Between July 2021 and July 2022, 154,950 tons of waste was disposed of at the Flathead County landfill. Of the waste that ends up in the county landfill, roughly 52% is disposed of by commercial haulers, 12% by municipal haulers, 7% by private citizens and 29% from FCSWD container sites.
According to the comprehensive Disposal Fee Study conducted by MSW Consultants, the landfill “cannot continue to operate as needed without an adjustment to costs.”
Operating expenses for the landfill are projected to increase by approximately 4.7% annually through 2029 due to staffing increases and capital projects including road and container site improvements.
The study found that if fees were not adjusted, the district’s cash reserves would “fall significantly below the amount it will need to sufficiently fund its ongoing operations, and pay for its projected capital expenditures.”