Crowd pleads with city to trash garbage fee

Shelbyville resident Roland Finchum tells city council members Monday that they need to keep cutting the budget instead of imposing an $11 trash pickup fee on citizens. Audience members were told that the council only had two options to deal with a $775,000 revenue shortfall -- raise property taxes by 21 cents or more or levy the garbage fee.
(T-G Photo by Brian Mosely)

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But the meeting at times descended into a shouting match, with residents accusing council members of being misled into passing the $11 fee.

The city council voted 4-2 late last month to pass the 2010-2011 budget that will be balanced using the fees collected from residents for garbage pickup.

But angry citizens claimed they are being double taxed by the fee and that the council should look at making other cuts in the budget.

City manager Michael Dill said the purpose of the meeting was to clarify the issue of the trash fee and give people the opportunity to speak.

Dill said that this year's budget had a shortfall of over three quarters of a million dollars "and the checkbook was empty, basically."

"We thought the fairest way to do is trash pickup rather than raise property taxes," Dill stated, which was met by shouts of "double taxation" from audience members.

The city manager said to match the money the garbage fee would bring in, they would have to hike the property tax by 21 cents. City departments have made many cuts, and the council discovered that other proposed cuts would actually cost the city more in the long run, Dill explained.

Before taking questions, Dill also asked the audience to respect a person's speaking time and wait before responding, but this request was ignored by a majority of the members of the crowd.

"Misled"

William Haston of the University of Tennessee's Municipal Technical Advisory Service (MTAS) was in attendance to try to explain the issues behind the fee. Dill said that the MTAS representative helps Shelbyville and many other cities deal with revenue issues.

Haston reiterated that the council had to make a choice how to deal with a $775,000 shortfall -- either raise property taxes or pass the trash fee.

He said proceeds from the fee would be put into a special revenue fund that is dedicated just for sanitation purposes, but members of the crowd shouted out that the city needed to cut spending instead, with some demanding a five percent cut across every department.

But Haston then asked which service did the citizens want cut -- fire or police? He said that those kinds of cuts could mean longer response times for emergency services.

Mayor Wallace Cartwright said at one point that Shelbyville's budget could be balanced if 18 city employees were laid off.

Nowlin Taylor said he believed that the council had been "misled" in the trash fee matter and stated "I don't think the city manager did his job."

Taylor said that Dill's explanations for the fee were "wrong" and said he did not think that the city council "has been told the truth about the matter."

"This is the wrong thing to do at the wrong time," Taylor said, noting the state of the economy. "I think it ought to be repealed and that we start all over again."

Haston told the crowd that the city's budget could be cut, "but you need to tell the people (the council) here what you don't want," for example -- do they want fire protection cut back, which would cause a homeowner's insurance to go up, he asked.

Where to cut

Truly Ponder said that citizens didn't need to speak to an expert like Haston, "but the people right here," referring to the council.

Dill pointed out that Shelbyville incurred several large unexpected expenses last year, such as the collapse of the underground flume and the demolition of two buildings near the public square, which drew reserve funds out of the budget and led to the current situation.

"Property tax is down, sales tax is down ... because the economy's bad," Dill said. "This is nothing that we want to do," referring to the fee.

Dill also corrected one audience member who claimed that the state would not come in if the city went into a negative budget situation.

Haston said that the Comptroller of the Treasury "will not allow" such a budget and Dill said that the state can come in "and set your property tax where they want it, not where you want it."

Councilman Al Stephenson said for the past nine years, the city had a balanced budget and the state has not come in, but Haston asked if the city had used its reserves. However, Stephenson just answered that there are things in the budget that could be cut.

Ponder suggested cutting $775,000 out of the recreation center budget, but Dill asked how many more police will the city have to hire if they closed the center.

Harold Segroves spoke to the council at length, saying he thought someone from the Tennessee Municipal League would attend who was qualified to speak on the matter.

"Instead of clearing up something, what you're doing tonight, you're creating more confusion," he said, saying the council was misled and should rescind the action.

"I don't think this is about a tax increase or a trash pick-up fee, I think it's about acting under false pretenses -- telling the public that you have to pass this tax, this trash pickup fee, or else," Segroves said. He also questioned the accuracy of articles covering the matter in the T-G.

Cartwright said that if the city had increased the property tax rate a few pennies a year over the past 10 or 15 years, the city would be in good financial shape.

The mayor pointed out that the tax rate was at $1.41 when Stephenson left the mayor's office in 1999 and hasn't gone up since then.

Stephenson said he had left a $3 million dollar surplus in the budget when he departed, but Cartwright responded that the city's retirement benefits have been eating into that surplus, along with the expense for the flume, demolition and other matters such as lawsuits.

"As of September of next year, we're broke, so what do you want to do?" Cartwright asked.

Dill said that cost reductions were made in every city department and that the trash fee was implemented in accordance with GASB (Governmental Accounting Standards Board) rules.

"There a big hole that has to be filed, there has to be funds to do it and we can't cut a lot more to fill that hole," Dill said.