Residential Assessment

Residential Rate Assessment
Before October 1, 1990, owners of all improved property in the county paid for disposal, which is the cost to process the waste after it is collected, directly to their waste hauler or their municipality. The SWA then charged tipping fees to haulers for each ton of waste delivered to a SWA facility. The municipalities included the disposal fees in the rates they charged their residential customers, typically via an utility bill or incorporated in their ad valorem taxes. Beginning October 1, 1990, the SWA began charging residential property owners directly for these costs through a non ad valorem assessment on the annual tax bill.

Categories
Residential properties are assigned to 1 of 4 categories: single family, mobile home, multifamily with four units or less, and multi-family with five units or more. The assessment is based on the average annual tonnage as determined by periodic waste generation studies. The average annual tonnage, as determined by the most recent Residential Generation Study (PDF), is presented in the following table:

Category
Garbage & Trash
Vegetation
Single family
1.10
0.85
Mobile family
1.10
0.58
Multifamily combined
0.71
0.00

The assessment rates are adopted by the Governing Board each fiscal year at a Public Hearing, and are calculated based upon the adopted budget.

Unincorporated Areas
The SWA has a second assessment to cover the cost of waste collection for owners of residential property located in the unincorporated area of the county. This assessment is called the Mandatory Collection Special Assessment. These properties receive collection service by private companies who are awarded contracts by the SWA based on a sealed bid process.

Municipal Residents
Municipal residents pay for waste collection services directly to their municipality either through their utility bill or their property tax bill.

Fund Use
Since the SWA receives all the funds for disposal of residential waste directly from the property owners, it issues "residential credits" to the waste haulers to offset the tipping fees they are charged when they deliver it to a SWA facility. The credits are necessary to separate prepaid residential waste from commercial debris subject to a tipping fee. These credits are calculated by multiplying the number of units serviced by each waste hauler in each category by the average annual tonnage per unit as shown above.