Monday, December 18, 2023–8:44 p.m.
-David Crowder, WRGA News-
Rome City Commissioners have approved solid waste collection rates for the coming year.
“It is a 3.3 percent increase,” he said. “If you are at home or in the audience, wondering what that means for you—if you are like 97 percent of our residential customers and you have a 65-gallon cart, that is $9.95 a month, and that is going up to $10.28, for a total of 33 cents more.”
It will be the first increase since 2018, according to Rome City Manager Sammy Rich.
“I know things are tough, and we have held the line as long as possible, but we need some incremental increase. We have a similar increase in yard waste as well–$1.60 a month to $1.66. We think these are pretty conservative increases at a time when we do need some incremental growth.”
Commercial garbage collection, non dumpster-type, is going up 40 cents for a 65-gallon cart and 58 cents for a 95-gallon cart.
For dumpster-type garbage, the rate for the first container pickup will go from $3.65 to $3.77 per cubic yard with second and additional containers going from $3.10 to $3.20.
You can see the new rates, which go into effect on January 1, here.
City budgets approved with one “no” vote
The Rome City Commission voted to adopt the proposed 2024 budgets Monday night.
The vote was now unanimous with Rome City Commissioner Mark Cochran cast the lone “no” vote.
“Madam mayor, I will be voting ‘no’ tonight on the budget until we, as a city, recognize GMA [Georgia Municipal Association] best practices and start to implement them for our budget process,” he said. “It’s just a matter of principle.”
During the last city commission campaign, Cochran began challenging how the budget process works, mostly via social media posts.
Rome City Manager Sammy Rich defended the hard work by city employees throughout the process.
“We have spent a lot of time discussing budgets this budget season,” he said. “I’d be remise not to thank our finance director Toni Rhinehart and her staff for the countless hours poring over and putting together the budget documents. This is a pretty large and complicated operation with a lot of employees, and it takes a lot to keep it operating.”
You can view the budgets here.
