Students apply to reduce City of Logan garbage billing
Some Logan residents may be overcharged each month for garbage services.
By default, every City of Logan Department of Utilities bill includes an $11.65 garbage fee. This follows an assumption that garbage disposal is around 90 gallons a week per residence. Households with closer to 60 gallons of garbage each week may be able to reduce the fee to $6.55.
Julie Hatch, the city’s utility billing editor, said those who eat out often or recycle may be candidates for the reduction.
“If you recycle, you can reduce your trash by quite a bit,” she said.
Making billing changes requires filling out an application.
“The easiest way is to get a form down at City Hall,” Hatch said.
The forms ask an applicant whether he recycles, how many people are in his household and what size garbage container he has, she said.
The applications are reviewed by employees of Environmental Health Services, where Hatch works. They basically take the applicant’s word for it, she said.
“It’s not like we’re going to come out and spy on you,” she said. “It really has to be fairly obvious [the applicant qualifies].”
There are quite a few people who take advantage of the fee reduction, Hatch said, although “it’s fairly passive [and] spreads a lot by word of mouth.”
Tom Robins, a junior majoring in history, said he did something most people don’t. He looked at his utility bill.
Robins was curious, called the city and found out about the fee reduction. He said he was surprised to find he had been paying unnecessarily since he began going to school at Utah State University in the fall of 2001.
“I felt like the City of Logan was counting on students not to take a second look at their utility bill,” he said, noting that most students probably just sign the check and turn it in.
Robins said he thinks it is unfair to charge a fee without publicizing the other options.
Nicole Watkins, a new customer service clerk for Billing and New Service, said when people sign up, her department tries to inform them of the option.
“I, personally, have not been very diligent [at informing people],” she said, explaining she plans to make a more concerted effort to do so.
The bill doesn’t include a statement about the option, she said, because there is little space. Too many other messages are included. Instead, the city notifies landlords, who can inform their tenants, she said.
Watkins said she thinks the reason Logan charges everyone $11.65 by default is there are more people disposing of 90 gallons a week than 60 gallons.
“We don’t want to short you on that space,” she said.
However, Watkins said the lower fee is a better option for students, since most of them probably don’t have too much garbage.
Robins said, “This policy, more than anything, adversely affects students and small families.”
He plans to make his case in front of the Logan City Council on Wednesday at 6:15 p.m. He said he will ask its members to include a memo about the option on the January bill. Robins feels the fee designation on the bill that reads “garbage standard” is misleading and should be clarified to express that it’s only one of two options. He also wants new customers to be better informed over the phone and by mail, he said.
An extra $5 a month can add up, Robins said, and students could use the extra money for a date.
Carl Francis, recycling coordinator for Logan, said the idea of a fee reduction is good because it encourages people to recycle.
“I think it is an incentive,” he said, noting that if the price difference were greater, there would be even more willingness to recycle.
“Logan is really trying to get people to recycle more to save landfill space,” Francis said, explaining landfills cost millions of dollars to maintain.
Hatch said some of the money from garbage billing goes toward landfill maintenance, along with that of garbage trucks.
Students who want to see a change in the way Logan bills residents for garbage can join Robins at the City Council meeting, located at 255 N. Main St., Wednesday, Nov. 20, at 6:15 p.m.
-amarie@cc.usu.edu