Commission raises solid-waste fee; commission debates moving mosquito control, demolition and vacant-lot costs out of trash bill

Augusta commissioners voted to raise the city’s residential solid-waste fee by $4.50 per month — an annual increase of $54 — after extended discussion about whether the city’s trash bill should continue to fund several ancillary programs.

Administrator Allen presented three fee scenarios staff studied and told commissioners a no-change approach would leave the solid-waste fund with a roughly $4 million deficit. The three options were presented as two prior proposals and a third “compromise” option; the commission ultimately approved a substitute motion adopting the option that raises the monthly bill $4.50 (an annual residential total of $374.50), a vote the clerk recorded as carrying 6–4.

The debate focused on a core question: which services should be included in the solid-waste fee? Staff said the current collection charge has been used historically to pay for mosquito control, vacant-lot cutting and demolition programs, and that those allocations contributed to the higher combined cost. Commissioner Stacy Pulliam and others asked whether mosquito control funding and demolition funding could be shifted to another source — the general fund — rather than remain attached to the trash bill. Administrator Allen said shifting those programs out of the trash fund would require budgeting the costs in the general fund and could therefore be covered by millage or other general-fund adjustments, with tradeoffs.

Public-health mosquito-control funding was a particular flashpoint. Finance and environmental staff explained the mosquito-control program receives multiple funding sources in Augusta — a combination of stormwater and public-health allocations — and that proposals to remove that support from the trash bill would require identifying replacement funding. Department staff explained the Department of Public Health receives stormwater and county allocations and in recent years has required caller-driven requests through 311 to trigger targeted spraying operations.

Commissioners also discussed whether demolition funding — historically partially funded from SPLOST or special capital sources — could be preserved if removed from the trash fund. Attorney Plunkett said legal staff would research whether earlier SPLOST allocations could be repurposed for demolition work.

Why it matters: The commission must balance service levels, fairness of fee structure, and fiscal sustainability. Some residents object to paying a single trash bill that also supports programs they do not personally use; commissioners debated whether the general fund or other dedicated funding streams would be a fairer way to pay for those ancillary services.

What passed: The commission substituted the smaller increase (option A) and approved it 6–4. Staff will update commissioners with follow-up analyses on mosquito-control funding, demolition funding alternatives and potential use of other SPLOST or general-fund sources.

Next steps: Staff will bring back information on whether the mosquito-control and demolition costs can be reassigned to other funding sources, the results of which will be considered as part of the 2026 budget process.