Houston may charge $5 for trash. A city study said it needs more.

Mayor John Whitmire’s proposal to charge Houston residents a new $5 monthly fee for trash pickup falls far below the amounts recommended in a city-commissioned study on how to improve Houston’s long-struggling solid waste system.

The study concluded residential customers should pay about $32 per month — with the fee rising to $45 in 2031 — to cover the cost of trash, recycling, yard waste and heavy trash service. Whitmire instead proposed a $5 monthly charge as part of his budget this week, and did not commit to future increases.

The gap underscores the financial and political challenge facing Houston as city leaders attempt to stabilize a solid waste department plagued by missed pickups, staffing shortages and aging equipment while also closing a $180 million budget deficit. Even under the significantly higher fees proposed in the study, consultants said it would take years to fully improve solid waste services.

Houston hired consulting firm Burns & McDonnell more than two years ago to evaluate the Solid Waste Management Department and examine if the city should implement a garbage fee. Whitmire referenced the study Tuesday while describing the proposed charge as an “administrative fee.”

The Burns & McDonnell study, however, said even a fee designed only to cover administrative costs would need to be $7.57 per month — still higher than Whitmire’s initial proposal.

The mayor proposes charging the city’s roughly 383,000 residential waste customers $5 per month for two years. City Finance Director Melissa Dubowski said Wednesday the fee would then increase incrementally to $25 per month by 2032. But Whitmire stopped short Tuesday of committing to future increases, saying “we’re not going to do what I would call a genuine garbage fee until we improve services.” 

The report also recommended a separate “Clean City” fee be charged to all 1.1 million Houston water customers, not just the 383,000 residential trash customers. This citywide fee, initially $2.56, would cover citywide services like cleaning up illegal dump sites and discarded tires, and would let the city charge lower trash or administrative fees on residential customers. 

But Dubowski said Wednesday that only residential solid waste customers would pay a fee. 

Dubowski also said the 46,300 Houston families that pay for private trash service rather than receiving city service would pay no fees and would continue to collect $6 per month in city subsidies as an incentive to stay on private trash.

The mayor’s office did not respond to questions for this story by deadline. Whitmire’s office has not responded to requests for comment from the Chronicle since August. 

“The industry standard, in regard to residential solid waste rates, is to charge customers the full cost of service,” the Burns & McDonnell study said. “However, every dollar of revenue is beneficial as the city seeks to improve the solid waste program’s financial sustainability without imposing significant financial strain on residents.”

Even at the dramatically higher fees recommended in the Burns & McDonnell study, the report stressed it would take 5 years for its recommendations to fully improve solid waste services. 

The report assumed the department would need to add 297 employees and expand its fleet by 234 vehicles to provide reliable service.

“Residents may expect solid waste collection services to improve as soon as a residential solid waste fee is implemented,” the study states. “However, improvements will occur over time as the revenue generated from fees will help the (department) to hire additional personnel, purchase additional collection vehicles, repair and maintain infrastructure, and build reserve funds.”

Whitmire’s proposed $5 fee is projected to generate $24 million in the budget year that starts July 1. The Solid Waste budget is $117 million. 

The portion of the department budget not offset by the new fee would be covered by revenues from residents’ water and sewer bills. Whitmire’s proposal moves Solid Waste from the strained general fund — which funds police, fire, parks, libraries and other services — to the city utility system within Houston Public Works. 

Whitmire’s proposed budget, too, suggests Solid Waste improvements will take time. 

The document describes fleet and equipment upgrades, route optimization, and expanded recycling and composting services as “long term goals.” Short term priorities include restructuring operations, optimizing existing routes and leadership training.

Council Member Joaquin Martinez, one of the council’s strongest advocates for a trash fee, said the Burns & McDonnell study was much more aggressive than the proposal the city ultimately put forward. Officials, he said, were trying to find “common ground” between the study and what voters would accept.

“This is one of our efforts to exhaust all options before we actually implement a more aggressive trash fee if necessary,” Martinez said. “I think we need to make sure that we’re not putting that burden on taxpayers so quickly.”

Council Member Sallie Alcorn similarly said the administration wanted to avoid giving residents “sticker shock.” Over the next several years, she said, the city should have a clearer picture of whether operations improve enough to justify future fee increases. 

But politics also played a central role in shaping the proposal. 

“Everybody’s worried about their next election,” Martinez said, adding that council members needed to compromise. 

Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston, said the proposal exposes the political risk of charging residents directly for a service many Houstonians have viewed as covered by their taxes. If people believe a service is poor, he said, they’re less likely to pay for it.

“They’re going to try to sell this as a financial measure the city needs, and one that’s smaller than it is in other cities,” Rottinghaus said. “That’s cold comfort for people who wanted to support the mayor who they thought would keep taxes where they were.”

But there are also deeper dimensions to introducing the fee. The discussion, to Rottinghaus, “exposes this long running tension over Houston’s fiscal structure, and opens up a lot of debate about what can or should be done about it.”