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Pinellas County official outlines solid-waste rate plan after energy contract ends
Summary
Pinellas County solid-waste director told St. Pete Beach commissioners the county expects revenue loss after a long-standing power purchase agreement expired in 2024 and has proposed multi-year rate increases (an 8% proposal this year) to stabilize the enterprise fund.
Paul Sacko, director of solid waste for Pinellas County, briefed the St. Pete Beach commission on the county’s annual rate recommendation study and the drivers behind proposed increases to tipping fees.
Sacko said the county’s waste‑to‑energy facility previously received capacity payments through a 30‑year power purchase agreement with Duke Energy that expired at the end of 2024. He told the commission that contract had become a major revenue source and that, by the time it ended, capacity payments represented about 55% of the solid‑waste fund’s revenue.
With that revenue source gone, Sacko said the county has relied on a mix of sales from electricity generated at the plant (now a much smaller revenue line) and tipping fees paid per ton. He said the county began a multi‑year rate catch‑up in 2019 — planning annual increases in the mid‑single digits to avoid a single large rate shock — but that this year’s recommendation to the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners was for an 8% increase. Sacko said the 8% increase, if adopted, would be implemented for three years in the county projection and that for a typical single‑family home that generates about one ton of household waste per year the change would represent roughly $4.50 more per year for disposal countywide.
Sacko noted some uncertainty tied to the next operator of the county waste‑to‑energy facility: the county is soliciting proposals to operate the plant and recent incumbent cost increases (he referred to an almost 50% operator cost increase in the last year) were a factor in forecasting. He told commissioners the county expects competing proposals to come in lower than the recent operator increase and that the annual rate study will be revisited each year as new operator bids and market changes are known.
He emphasized the solid‑waste fund is an enterprise fund that does not use general‑fund (tax) dollars and that planned rate increases have been designed to smooth revenue needs over multiple years rather than impose a single large hike on municipal customers and private haulers.
Sacko summarized comparative context: even with the proposed increases, he said Pinellas County’s disposal fee would remain below the median among Florida counties that operate similar waste‑to‑energy facilities, because current county fees had not been adjusted for many years prior to the multi‑year plan.
