Not only are Monrovians’ taxes not going up, but also maybe a critical city service will become cheaper and even improve in delivery.
Last week, the Monroe City Council passed into ordinance 2025 property tax rates, holding these steady at last year’s levels. This came after the Council’s majority Democrats for the past month had talked up a tax increase of 1.81 mills to provide more dollars for unspecified spending they claimed necessary.
But at the meeting where the agenda had called for a public meeting to raise rates, instead that essentially was waved off when a promised amendment was entertained and passed unanimously keeping the 2024 rates. For whatever reason, the Democrats walked back from the tax hike.
Something else changed about the agenda as well. Initially, a discussion was to have taken place about privatizing Monroe’s garbage collection, but that didn’t make the final version. The Democrats previously had made noises about how their constituents didn’t like it.
It seems now they at least are willing to take voters’ temperature on the issue. All three Democrats have scheduled meetings with their constituents on the matter prior to the next Council meeting. And if they are knowledgeable about the issue, any fair presentation would trigger enthusiasm among their constituents for, and compel them to seek out, contracting of this city service.
As it is, about four out of every five municipality in the U.S. collects waste through a private operator. Over two-thirds of that is by public businesses with several large national firms taking much of that, and the remainder by private companies. There are several reasons why so many cities adopted privatization of collection.
Almost always it turns out cheaper, because of the specialization and economies of scale private operators bring. They can operate more flexibly and responsively compared to government’s bureaucracy and regulation. Only in America’s largest cities is it less common only because those are such huge operations that they can capture to some degree expertise and scale. With privatization, smaller cities don’t have to worry themselves about personnel, liability, raising capital for assets, and maintenance.
Besides downward price pressure, competition also spurs innovation. Interestingly, recycling efforts increase dramatically when private operators become involved. As well, safety records improve and equipment downtime decreases.
By way of example, Bossier City, which has about 15,000 more people than Monroe, over a decade ago privatized its waste collection. Since then, its rates have risen only twice, most recently just this year, with generally satisfactory views about that service. Part of that success has come with the willingness of elected officials to seek out competition, which led to a change in operators a few years ago.
It also was able to launch basic curbside recycling, which ultimately can reduce tipping fees at landfills which is often the single largest or most uncontrollable cost for municipalities that do their own waste collection. Outside companies usually have their own landfills or access to these the fees of which become part of the bargaining process.
And, of course, West Monroe contracts collection and Ouachita Parish makes it the responsibility of the property owner to find a collector from the private sector. West Monroe’s rates are comparable to Monroe’s but apparently is an operation on more solid financial footing.
However, the only way to discover whether less costly and improve solid waste collection service may occur is to send out requests for proposal, see what turns up, and do due diligence on these. The Council should proceed in that direction as the alternative way to find more money instead of tax increases.
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