Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Council raises garbage rates

Gurdon's City Council voted unanimously Monday night to raise garbage pick-up rates by $1.50 a month, across the board.

Mayor Clayton Franklin said, "This will give us roughly $16,000 more to work with each year, so it would be quite awhile before we would have to come back and ask to raise the rates again. We had gone many years without an increase, and held off a year after we knew we needed one. This put us in the hole $5,000 on garbage over the past year."

He said between running at a loss of $5,000 a year, plus an anticipated $3,600 annual increase in the garbage tipping fee, passing on the higher cost was unavoidable.

Franklin said there are 909 residential garbage accounts, and 78 for businesses. The minimum needed to retire the current garbage debt problem for next year would have been between $12,000 and $13,000.

A residential garbage bill, for the average citizen, will increase from $6.83 to $8.35 a month, payable with their water bill. For senior citizens, the increase will be from $5.48 to $6.98.

As to business accounts, Franklin said some are paying $9 a month, while one is paying $137 a month because of tonnage. He said all business accounts will go up the $1.50 per month for now, but "the tonnage issue will be addressed and more increases for some businesses will be considered later in the year."

In other action, the Council passed ordinances for the 2004 budget conclusion, from Jan. 1, until Dec. 31, 2004, and for a newly projected 2005 budget.

Of the new budget, Franklin said, "It involves more than a $52,000 cut from last year, which means we have to live within our means after anticipating less tax money. It amounts to nearly a 12 percent cut overall. It is a painful budget, but it is belt-tightening time."

According to the mayor, all departments but one have had cuts in expenses, "but we don't want to cut services."

He said the only departmental budget that got an increase was solid waste, which went up approximately 8 percent to cover higher costs of getting the job done.

The overall 2005 budget was set at $386,977.02. Administrative expenses, unless grants are awarded and change things, are to be cut by 23 percent from last year.

The police department is being cut by $27,466. Mayor Franklin said this means doing away with a dispatcher's salary and having water department personnel handle the dispatching.

"We were able to cut animal control by 47 percent because the current employee works for both the water department and cares for the animals," Franklin said. "Last year, we had a full-time animal control worker in the budget."

Moreover, he said $25,810 was cut from street expenses from the street operation, but if necessary the street department can buy with bond money.

Four positions were eliminated from the volunteer fire department, which was a 23 percent cut. As to the cemetery fund, a new lawnmower was in the budget for last year at $2,500, which is not an expense item for 2005.

"We anticipate taking in about the same in cemetery dues this year, so we should be OK and be able to spend less with no new equipment purchases anticipated," Franklin said.