Cascade County Commissioners are holding a special meeting Sept. 19 at 6:30 p.m. to consider proposed solid waste fee increases.

The county has a contract with Republic Services for solid waste management in the county and under state law, the county can use fees to finance the system.

The board hasn’t increased those fees since 2012, “making the current rates and charges wholly inequitable in proportion to the services and benefits rendered,” according to commissioners, who are proposing a 50 percent increase in the fee to all county residents that own property and/or business outside the city limits.

That increase was already included in the county budget for the current fiscal year that commissioners approved Sept. 5.

Commissioners state in their agenda report for the special meeting that the rate increase is needed to keep up with landfill costs.

Some commissioners and county staff have also said in recent public meetings that the county needs to build the cash reserve for solid waste in order to make needed capital improvements to the system.

Commissioners are also proposing adjusting trailer sizes allowed at county dump sites and the type of refuse accepting at those sites to ensure they remain operable for their primary intended use of collecting household waste from county residents.

The county will continue issuing solid waste coupons that will be acceptable payment forms, in addition to cash and checks, at county dump sites.

The proposed 50 percent increase will raise the annual solid waste fee to county residents from $120 to $180. The fee is applicable to county residents outside the incorporated areas of the City of Great Falls, and towns of Belt and Cascade.

The county is projecting an estimated $310,000 to relocate the Armington/Belt site, with a potential additional $130,000 depending on site availability, and assuming the county conducts the construction work and mirrors design of the current site with no engineering required. The potential future site would not have power or a compactor, according to county documents.

Adding containers to the Hardy Creek site could range in cost from $9,401 to $15,000 and a potential $374,000 to combine the Cascade and Hardy Creek sites.

During a July meeting, Commissioner Joe Briggs said that the county didn’t want to be in the solid waste business, but it’s mandated by state law.

Briggs said the county has had issues at the Hardy Creek site with it being filled with pain, asbestos materials and tires.

He said the county shifted to staffing that site to prevent hazardous materials from being dumped into the stream.

The landfill will charge the county more for bringing those types of hazardous materials so the county went to the punch card, recognizing that residential households shouldn’t pay as much as commercial users and the colonies.

Briggs said most county dump sites don’t have power so they couldn’t run credit cards, which is why the county went to punch cards as a practical way to accommodate different fee schedules.

Commissioner Jim Larson said maybe they could use cell phones to process payments but didn’t care for the handling of cash and checks at dump sites.

“There are nefarious folks out there,” and it could cause problems with solo site attendants, Larson said, coming back to the punch card that “seems to be the best and easiest way to handle that.”

Briggs said during the July meeting that there were discussions to be had about improving operations at dump sites, but those improvements wouldn’t offset the landfill costs under the contract with Republic Services.

“These are not going to right the ship financially,” he said, and a fee increase would be needed.

He said the county could close or consolidate sites, but that will take cash and require the county to build the solid waste program’s cash reserves.

“Fundamentally, the costs are exceeding the revenue at a rate that we’re not going to be able to fix with operational tweaks,” Briggs said in July.

Phoebe Marcinek, a deputy county attorney, said it would be interesting to see how much more trash goes to the Cascade site if they close the Hardy Creek site since she believes people from Lewis and Clark County are using that site.

During the July meeting, Trista Beisch, the county’s financial officer, said that the county would need at least a 22 percent increase to break even for the 2024 solid waste rates, more to keep up with increase built into the Republic contract.

They’d need a 35 percent increase to break even for a year, but then back in the negative the following year, she said.

A 40 percent increase would start to put some money into the capital reserve for two years, but then be back in the red for the third year, she said.