NATCHEZ, Miss. — Garbage fees Natchez residents paid this past year was not enough to cover expenses for picking up and disposing their trash, forcing the city to dip into other funds.
For the fiscal year that ended in September, city garbage expenses totaled about $1.5 million while about $1.3 million in revenues were received, according to City Clerk Megan McKenzie. She noted city officials had to come up with about $123,000 to fill the deficit.
Natchez Mayor Dan Gibson recently said the contracted garbage collector – Arrow Disposal Services – will be charging more as the city entered its municipal budget for the fiscal year that began last month. However, he indicated it’ll be a modest increase.
It’s uncertain whether the city needs to increase the $19.90 garbage-collection fee that households pay now each month.
The city Board of Aldermen hired Alabama-based Arrow in 2018 to replace Waste Pro as Natchez’ trash collector. That’s when the $19.90-a-month garbage fee was set – a 45 percent increase from the old rate of $13.74.
Arrow collects residential trash three times a week (twice for non recyclable trash and once for recyclables).
The city’s $1.5 million garbage-collection expenses this past year was for the curbside pickup service and for disposing the trash in private landfills. They include waste dumps in south Adams County and in south Jefferson County.
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Aldermen continue to consider giving pay raises to employees of the Natchez Public Works Department, which is in a “dire situation” because it’s losing workers going elsewhere for better pay, said Mayor Dan Gibson.
He said he and aldermen plan to meet next week in a special session to further discuss giving Public Works employees higher pay. The mayor noted earlier this month the department is about seven employees short of what it needs.
The Public Works Department provides various essential services, such as maintaining streets, cutting grass, addressing water-drainage problems and responding to weather-related disasters.
City officials receive complaints from constituents about untended municipal services, “but we just don’t have enough personnel,” said Alderman Billie Joe Frazier.
Aldermen on Tuesday did vote to require new Natchez Police Department officers whose training is paid by the city to remain with the NPD for at least three years or risk having to reimburse the city for their police education if they join another law-enforcement agency. Aldermen were told that the NPD has lost some recent recruits who go elsewhere after the city has paid to have them trained at the police academy.
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