City of San Diego to present updated trash fee proposal on April 14

The Environmental Services Department is proposing an unpopular trash and recycling collection fee hike in San Diego, where trash collection hasn’t been charged in over 100 years, ranging between $36.72 and $47.59 per month to offset a projected $258 million budget deficit.

After one year of extensive community outreach and the completion of a thorough cost-of-service study and operational analysis, the City’s Environmental Services Department will ask the City Council on Monday, April 14, to initiate the process for setting a cost-recovery fee for trash and recycling collection services. The fee being brought forward for City Council consideration is significantly lower than the draft amount initially shared in February.

If approved by the City Council, the trash fee would allow Environmental Services only to recoup the costs to provide trash and recycling services, which is currently paid primarily through the City’s General Fund. The City provides waste-collection services to more than 200,000 residential properties in San Diego.

“The proposed trash collection fee has not been set,” said Joe LaCava, Council president and District 1 council member representing La Jolla and Pacific Beach. “I have heard the concerns in my town hall meetings and numerous conversations with residents. I urge everyone to continue providing input as I work with the mayor to right-size operations with competitive rates.”

In the Ask the Mayor segment of his weekly newsletter, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria defended the proposed new City fee. “The proposed waste collection fee is not double taxation – it’s enhancing our waste collection service and ensuring that those who receive the service are covering the cost, freeing up severely limited General Fund dollars for critical citywide services and improvements that benefit all of us,” he said. “If you’re already paying for trash today, if you live in an HOA community or condo, for example, the new cost-recovery fee won’t affect you.

“For decades, most single-family San Diego homes have received City trash collection at no direct cost to them – no bill and no line item on their property tax or other bill. The service has been funded by the City’s General Fund, the same operational budget that supports public goods like police, fire-rescue, libraries, parks, and road repairs.”

“Meanwhile, residents in apartments, condos, and homes with HOAs have paid for trash collection themselves through private companies,” continued Gloria. “This opportunity to address this longstanding inequity was created when voters approved Measure B in 2022, repealing the outdated People’s Ordinance that prohibited the City from charging for trash pickup, which then allowed the City to charge a fee for residential trash collection. This move aligns San Diego with every other city in San Diego County and nearly the entire state.”

San Diego’s proposed trash collection fee would be modest compared with some other large California cities, such as Sacramento, which charges $57.79 monthly, and Oakland and San Jose, which charge $160.27 and $160.35 monthly, respectively.

Residents in cities elsewhere in San Diego County pay considerably less than the City is proposing to charge for their monthly trash collection. La Mesa residents pay $27.33, while Chula Vista and Carlsbad residents pay $36.80. All three cities utilize outside sanitation companies for trash collection, while San Diego uses City employees and equipment.

ESD team members are now hosting open houses throughout San Diego to allow residents to share their feedback and better understand the City’s position that a new trash collection fee would benefit the City and its residents, ensuring a safe and clean environment for all.

Also in his newsletter, Gloria pointed out that: “While we all pay property and sales taxes, only a small fraction of these taxes go to the City. While 7.75 cents is collected in sales tax for every dollar spent, just 1 cent comes to the City; the rest goes to the state, county, and SANDAG (regional transportation planning agency). Of the property taxes you pay, the City receives about 18 cents per $1. That limited revenue must stretch across all basic services, and that currently includes the approximately $90 million annual cost of City-provided trash collection for single-family homes.”

Added Gloria: “While all San Diegans contribute to the General Fund through property and sales tax, the City historically has used it to fund trash services – effectively asking one subset of residents who already pay for private trash collection to subsidize the free collection for others. Voters chose to fix that inequity by supporting Measure B.”

Under the new trash fee proposal, monthly fees for the first year are lower than those presented in the preliminary report from February. The Council will be asked to set a hearing date in early June for a final vote to consider the fees and new program, and for a second hearing later in June to approve collecting the fee through the County’s property tax collections process. There will not be a vote on the proposed trash fee on April 14.

Under the proposed options that will be presented to the City Council, Environmental Services plans to provide all customers with 95-gallon blue recycling and green organic waste recycling bins (one each with options to purchase additional bins). For the refuse (trash) bin, customers will have the choice of: