Shenandoah residents to receive free trash pickup in new budget

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Texas -- The City of Shenandoah is trash talking with the residents... and it is a good thing. As of October 1, city residents will no longer pay a monthly solid waste pick-up charge.

They will, however, see savings of about $220/house each year from the hard work of the Shenandoah City Council, especially one member who made trash his issue during the last year.

Council Member Ron Raymaker has made “free trash for residents” his rallying cry. Every discussion on trash pick-up included comments about the city picking up the cost. When Council sat down at the budget workshop table August 3-5, discussion once again included “free trash.” When discussion on recycling was brought up, Raymaker noted that “residents would be more likely to recycle if the City paid for trash.” After much discussion, the rest of Council came to the same conclusion: the City could afford to pick-up garbage collection costs for residents while still cutting the tax rate. This equals a residential savings of $18.07/ month. Recycling, since participation is by choice, will remain a resident cost at $6.33/month plus tax. Because trash is paid a month in arrears, residents will see one more charge for trash on the bill they receive in October, reflecting the September usage.

The other utility that will see a change effective October 1 is water. The Lone Star Groundwater Conservation District fee is increasing to $0.075/1000 gallons of usage from $0.06 cents. The groundwater reduction plan fee or GRP will decrease to $0.55/1000 gallons of usage from $0.60. Therefore, residents will see an overall decrease of $0.035/1000 gallons of water used.

In addition to the savings from the City picking up trash cost, Council lowered the tax rate for the 2017- 18 budget. City property owners will see a reduction of almost 2 cents in the tax rate, which falls from $0.2295 to $0.2099. Council has been consistent in reducing the tax rate each year, partially offsetting the increase in assessed value of Montgomery County property. This reduction results each year in Shenandoah having the lowest property tax rate of any city in Montgomery County. Reducing the tax rate was the result of very intense discussion at the three-day budget workshop, attended by Council and all the city department heads. During the long hours, questions were asked, budget items checked and rechecked, projections tightened and costs reduced. The end result was another nice reduction for Shenandoah taxpayers.