Cookeville Increasing Commercial Waste Fees

Businesses in Cookeville need to prepare for commercial waste collection fees to increase by twelve percent starting in October.

Public Works Director Mary Beth Elrod said prices will go up for all commercial waste collection rentals, purchases, and pickups but their services and pricing structure will stay the same. Elrod said the increase will allow them to add a new garbage route and driver to the department.

“The last rate increase we had to our rates was in 2017,” Elrod said. “That was a ten percent increase in 2017. We all know that fuel prices increased, equipment increased, wages increased, and so this, we’ve made it seven years and we are going to have to increase again to help with our growing city.”

Elrod said they have contacted everyone using these commercial services to notify them of the change. Elrod said they have received several phone calls from customers to discuss the increase but no one has adjusted the services they are receiving from the city.

“The rate increase takes effect for the October 1 bills,” Elrod said. “But they will not see those bills until November because it’s billed the month after the service is done.”

Elrod said it should be a long period of time before rates increase again as long as the city’s growth does not greatly exceed expectations.

“We’ve got at least a three to four year projection that this rate increase will help us,” Elrod said. “It will cover this additional employee for an additional route and it will cover for one truck per year for the next few years.”

Elrod said they will be purchasing the trucks each year to keep their vehicles reliable as their current fleet is showing its age.

“Our goal was to budget for two trucks per year and an additional employee and we didn’t want to get too high,” Elrod said. “We had a ten percent increase in 2017 and so we started looking at a twelve percent increase and a twenty percent increase and we decided to go with the twelve percent increase just to keep it not as cumbersome on our city and our commercial development.”

Elrod said the change will not affect residential sanitation services as those are financed through local taxes and not regularly billed.