The Las Cruces City Council unanimously approved a $2 monthly solid waste rate increase at its Monday, July 20, 2020 meeting.
The new monthly rate for residential customers who have a 96-gallon container will be $15.25. The monthly rate for a 64-gallon container will be $13.25. In the new rate structure, residential customers could keep their current rate by opting for the smaller, 64-gallon container. The 96- and 64-gallon containers are the same height, but the 64-gallon container is narrower.
The new monthly rate for a commercial 96-gallon container will be $28, as compared to the current rate of $27.80. The new monthly rate for a 1.5 cubic yard commercial trash receptacle picked up once a week, will be $70, as compared to the current rate of $64.
The $2 monthly increase in residential solid waste rates could go into effect as soon as the September 2020 billing.
The new solid waste rates will replace those that had been in effect since 2015. The new rates will offset a shortfall of $1.34 million that an independent consultant determined was needed to maintain the level of service for customers.
Consideration of the proposed solid waste rate increase was tabled by the council at its March 16, 2020 meeting. The council then tabled the rate increase in order to give customers additional time to prepare for the adjustment.
Las Cruces Utilities (LCU) is a City department but is not funded by tax dollars. Operations for LCU are solely funded through monthly utility billing to recover the cost of providing services to customers.
The LCU Board of Commissioners will approve the implementation of the new rates and tariff schedules by class of service for solid waste service. In order to mitigate future impact to customer, LCU staff will conduct and recommend more periodic rate reviews as required.
The new solid waste rates came to be after the Utilities Customer Advisory Group (UCAG) conducted 12 Community Conversations from September 2019 to December 2019. The UCAG recommended a full-cost-of-service increase in late 2019, and the LCU Board of Commissioners accepted the recommendation in January 2020.