Hilltops Council has voted to adopt the amended waste fees and charges at its most recent Ordinary Meeting.
Following public exhibition of the revised fees and charges Councillors unanimously voted to adopt the recommendation to amend them.
"An attempt was made in the development of the 2023/2024 Fees and Charges and Revenue Police to move towards cost recovery for waste services as well as to address some of the inequities present in the previous fees and charges," the report to Council read.
Council attempted this by aligning volume based waste disposal charges to ensure the same waste attracted the same price per tonne or per cubic meter regardless of the delivery location or method, by increasing annual waste charges by 30 percent to bring the highest charges close to the cost of providing waste facilities, by introducing a charge for excavated natural material or virgin excavated natural material ($77.35/t and $116/m3) to replace the free drop off clean fill, by removing exemption for Boorowa ratepayers to dispose of domestic waste for free and by introducing a charge for septic waste disposal from small trucks (up to 1,000L) as the previous Fees and Charges did not allow for these smaller loads to be charged.
"An unintended consequence of these changes was a significant impact on the actual fees paid by many customers," the report read.
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"The magnitude of the increase was not well communicated to Council during the adoption of fees and charges.
"Although the changes to waste disposal charges more fairly allocate the costs of waste disposal, Council did not consider a phased transition and the changes were not adequately communicated to customers."
According to Council the impact of the 30 percent increase to the existing annual waste charges was described as being inequitable as 'it exacerbated the pre-existing difference between charges for Boorowa, Harden and Young areas.
"Council can now address concerns raised about the changes by re-establishing fees and charges with lesser change from the previous year," the report read.
"This will also allow further consultation to be undertaken on options for fees and charges."
According to the report other less significant changes are not proposed to be undone as Council is not aware of any 'unintended consequences'.
These include the increase to the replacement rural waste depot key fee which has gone from $59 to $103, to ne close to the new key fee which was $39 for Boorowa or $100 for Young, now it is $110 for both areas.
"As the cost to Council of having the key cut is the same in both cases and key replacement can also require the changing of all keys and locks for the relevant waste facility," the report read.
The other change that will remain the same is the new charges for the disposal of tyres with rims, to reflect the cost to Council of having rims removed at local tyre dealerships.
Following the public exhibition of the amended fees and charges 12 submissions were received from Council with the submissions expressing 'diverse views' and 'generally supported reduced fees' according to Council.
"Three submissions stated that they supported the exhibited changes to fees and charges," the report read.
"Four submissions supported harmonisation of fees and charges between the Boorowa, Harden and Young areas.
"Three submissions stated that there should be more consultation.
"Two submissions asked for reduced charges specifically for the Boorowa area.
"Two submissions stated that there should be no disposal fees as they pay an annual access charge. One submission stated that domestic waste disposal charges should be reduced.
"One submission stated that there should be no annual access charges and costs should be recovered through disposal charges.
"One submission stated that charges should apply to the volume of waste not the container volume, that weigh bridges should be used at Boorowa and Harden waste facilities, noted there was a big difference between domestic and commercial waste disposal charges and asked for postal notice of changes."
According to Council submissions also raised other issue not directly related to the proposed fees and charges including facilities provided at sites, site security and Council processes.
"Community consultation is proposed to start later this year and will consider the issues raised in submissions including those not relevant to the exhibited fees and charges," the report read.
The charges proposed to be amended in the 2024/25 Revenue Policy are:
DOMESTIC COLLECTION CHARGE - URBAN
Harden/Murrumburrah was $692.59pa to $559.93pa
Harden/Murrumburrah upgrade was $320.65 to $259.24pa
Boorowa was $436.12 to $352.59pa
Boorowa Waste Access Availability Charge was $272.36 to $220.20pa
Galong was $553.48 to $447.46pa
Young (GA) was $508.08 to $410.76pa
DOMESTIC COLLECTION CHARGE - NON URBAN
Young (GV) was $64.41 to $52.08
Harden Waste Access was $48.31 to $39.07
VACANT LAND COLLECTION CHARGE
Harden-Murrumburrah was $48.32 to $39.07
Boorowa was $273.81 to $221.36
Young Urban (GB) was $168.38 to $136.14
RECYCLING COLLECTION CHARGE
Organic collection Harden-Murrumburrah was $79.02 to $63.92
Boorowa was $100.74 to $81.44
Young Urban (GR) was $90.78 to $73.39
GREEN WASTE COLLECTION CHARGE
Young (GW) was $80.53 to $65.11
COMMERCIAL COLLECTION CHARGE
Boorowa (per bin) was $764.32 to $617.92
Boorowa recycling was $98.08 to $79.30
Harden-Murrumburrah is $17 per pickup with no change.
The full table with the changes, including household waste, commercial loads, soil and liquid trade waste, that have been adopted is available on the Hilltops Council website.
The recommendations from Council were moved by Cr Flanery and Cr Stadtmiller and moved unanimously.
