The City Council took the first step Tuesday in raising garbage-pickup fees for Tucson businesses and charging them a fuel surcharge for the first time.
The council unanimously approved raising the fees between 20 percent and 60 percent to close a $4 million operating deficit for picking up commercial trash. Mayor Bob Walkup was absent.
The council also gave its first approval for a 2 percent fuel surcharge if the price of biodiesel fuel used in its trucks averages the $3.50 a gallon the city now pays.
A series of public hearings will be held before the council gives final approval. Rate increases would take effect July 1 and fuel surcharges would take effect Oct. 1.
Under the proposal, customers with front-load service would be hit by rate increases between 19 percent and 34 percent, depending on the size of their containers and their frequency of service.
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Rates for businesses that use plastic containers similar to residential bins would see their rates rise 29 percent.
Rates for "roll-off" service — long, rectangular, open-topped bins that are loaded onto a flatbed truck and hauled directly to the landfill — would see a 63 percent boost under the plan.
The fuel surcharge would impose a 1.5 percent add-on if the price of biodiesel is more than $3.30 a gallon, but there would be no surcharge if the price drops below that level.
The surcharge would be adjusted up 0.25 percent every 90 days for every 10-cent increase in the average price of biodiesel, making the surcharge 2 percent if biodiesel costs $3.50, 3 percent if the cost of the fuel hits $4 a gallon, and 5.5 percent if it hits $5.
Property-tax help to expand
In other business, the council:
● Voted unanimously to expand a program to provide property-tax help to those who live near Downtown to include residents who earn up to the median income.
The program has been in place since 2005, but only those who made up to 80 percent of the median income qualified. The median income for the area is $44,000 for a family of two, and $55,000 for a family of four. Under previous rules, only those who made 80 percent of median income, or less, could qualify for the property-tax assistance.
The program operates with money from the sale of city-owned property Downtown and is available only to those who have lived in their homes since December 1999 or earlier.
It applies to residents in 14 Downtown neighborhoods and is meant to protect them from rising property values due to Downtown development and property sales.
In the first year of the assistance, 112 households took part in the program, and that dropped to about 12 the second year. During the first year, the average tax-assistance payment was $43. The second year, it was about $30.
● Voted unanimously to accept the recommendations of the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base alternative-energy-solutions task force that met for the past year to come up with solutions to power D-M other than through the city's power grid.
The task force considered an incinerator and two types of solar energy as the primary energy-generation options for the base. The task force recommended the base strongly consider solar power if it pursues alterative-energy generation.
