Sedgwick County staff recommend lower solid-waste fees and narrower tiers after review of parcel data

Sedgwick County staff presented proposed changes to the county'solid-waste fee schedule for 2026, telling commissioners the committee'backed plan would lower per-parcel fees by reducing tier levels while keeping the overall program revenue roughly neutral.

The proposal grew from a 2023 directive to review the county'fee structure, staff said, and is based on a committee review of land-based classification codes, a new week-by-week waste-volume study with haulers, and updated parcel counts used for billing.

The committee'work matters because the solid-waste fee appears on property tax bills and funds programs such as the household hazardous waste (HHW) facility, remote collection events, electronics recycling, tire events, bulky-waste coupons and illegal-dumping cleanup. "We are being transparent. There's a line there that says solid waste fee and tells you how much it is," said Susan Lynn, a county solid-waste staff member who presented the review and the plan.

Why it matters

County staff and commissioners said the review responds to complaints from municipal parks and other property owners who were placed in higher tiers after the county adopted a revised schedule in mid-2024. Commissioners asked whether the classification scheme and billing process could treat small community parks differently from large regional parks or combine multiple contiguous parcels under one billing unit.

What staff presented

Susan Lynn traced the fee's history to an initial program enacted in 1999 and described how the committee revised tiers by matching land-based classification codes to waste volumes reported by private haulers. The committee found household/residential waste averages roughly one ton per household per year and measured commercial and institutional volumes that ranged from about 12 tons to more than 1,800 tons annually for different property types.

Lynn said the committee proposed lowering fees across categories for 2026: "Every category, we're lowering the fee." She displayed a side-by-side comparison of 2025 amounts and the committee's 2026 request, and told commissioners the changes are supported by a second waste-volume analysis and by adding parcels into the billing base.

Key numbers and program costs cited by staff

- Parcel notices mailed: roughly 261,000; only 37 property owners called about tier placement. - Parcel counts cited: 251,134 parcels in 2023; 262,923 parcels in 2024. - Residential parcels: "We have some 80,000 plus, residential parcels," a county official said during the briefing. - Program cost increases: transfer-station disposal cited rising from about $34 per ton to roughly $74 per ton; HHW drum cost examples rose from about $116 to an average near $225. - Committee estimate for large annual waste producers: some categories measured over 1,500 tons per year.

Legal and technical limits on changing billing structure

Staff repeatedly emphasized that the county must use land-based classification codes in assessments and billing because of appraisal and state rules. Lynn cited state appraisal standards and the Property Valuation Division'based coding process; she said appraisers follow the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) and that land-based classification (LBC) codes are the standard.

County Appraiser Mark said parcel consolidation is possible in some cases but carries costs for property owners. "I've talked to an awful lot of people, and there's roughly 10,000 of these parcels that need to be combined," Mark said, adding that many owners consider consolidation cost-prohibitive.

Angela John, chief deputy clerk, described the practical limits of combining parcels: costs vary by title work and whether parcels are contiguous or platted. "If they are platted and unplatted, they cannot be combined," John said, adding that unplatted combinations generally require a surveyor.

Commissioner questions and next steps

Commissioners pressed staff on three topics: whether the county could create subclasses within an LBC to treat, for example, low-use community parks differently; whether municipalities or nonprofits were legally exempt from fees; and whether the county could change only the fee amounts without altering the billing structure.

County legal/staff comment: Justin Wagner (staff member) clarified that the solid-waste fee is not an ad valorem tax and is therefore treated differently for exemptions.

On timing, the clerk's office told commissioners the billing structure must be finalized before the appraiser certifies values for the tax system (the final CVI process in late May). Fee amounts can be adjusted later (into mid-June) but the underlying assessment structure must be set earlier in the schedule. Because of those deadlines, commissioners scheduled two follow-up briefings: a detailed presentation of the solid-waste plan and a separate briefing on the fee.

Areas of disagreement and follow-up work

Some commissioners said the fee changes did not fully resolve fairness concerns and asked for a workshop-level discussion of which programs should be funded by the fee. One commissioner suggested the fee currently subsidizes services most taxpayers never use and asked whether certain programs should be reduced or removed from the fee-funded list.

Staff noted one new program this fall: a pilot mattress coupon, limited to two items per disposal at a partner site in Wichita, and said staff is still balancing the number of bulky-waste coupons versus mattress coupons.

Operational context: where waste goes

Staff described how curbside trash and commercial dumpster material move through the regional system: private haulers bring mixed municipal waste to a transfer station (owned by Waste Connections) near 37th Street North and K-96; some construction and demolition material goes to private C&D landfills; municipal solid waste historically used the Brooks landfill (City of Wichita) which is now closed; other waste is transported to Plum Thicket Landfill in Harper County (owned by Waste Connections). Recyclables go to a material recovery facility (MRF) in South Hutchinson.

Ending / next meeting

Lynn told commissioners she will present the full solid-waste plan at the May 14 meeting and that commissioners would receive two briefings that week on the plan and the fee schedule. Commissioners asked staff to prepare additional analyses on parcel consolidation costs, the technical feasibility and software cost of creating billing subclasses, and the fiscal impact of removing or adding programs funded by the fee.

Quotes used in this story come directly from the May staff briefing transcript and are attributed to the speaker who spoke in the meeting.