Upland committee considers moving residential sewer, trash and storm drain charges to county tax roll

Upland’s Public Works Committee met April 8 to review a staff proposal that would add residential solid-waste, sewer and storm‑drain charges to the San Bernardino County property tax roll, a change staff said would cut billing costs and improve collection of delinquent accounts.

Chris Ollanes, Public Works project manager, told the committee the change would stop the city issuing separate bimonthly invoices for those residential services and instead include fixed utility fees on the annual property tax bill. Ollanes said the county charges the city approximately 30 cents per tax‑roll line item (about 90 cents for three lines) compared with the city’s current $2.09 per‑household billing cost, representing a savings of about $1.19 per household per month on the billing component. He said the change would not include commercial customers or water service, which will continue to be billed separately.

The staff presentation explained the change is intended to reduce the city’s unpaid‑bill shortfall, which staff described as “over a million dollars” annually for sewer and trash delinquency combined and cited a trash delinquency figure of $463,802. Ollanes said the city’s traditional enforcement tool — water shutoffs —…