Trash collection is not “free” in Denver, as you sometimes hear people claim, any more than fire protection is free. Homeowners are actually billed for trash collection, although some of them may not read the notice from the Department of Finance. “The General Fund mill levy pays for essential City services,” the January letter explains, “including: police and fire protection; libraries; street sweeping, paving and snow removal; [and] trash pickup . . . .”
Surely I am not the only Denver resident to have noticed this explanation and to have felt better, as a result, about writing those checks to the manager of revenue.
So let’s not kid ourselves. The drive to impose a new monthly fee for residential trash pickup in Denver has nothing to do with targeting a bunch of freeloaders who’ve somehow been overlooked all these years. Nor is the immediate motive to replace an outdated model with one that reduces the stream of trash, however dear that goal might be to some council members.
No, imposing a fee is a way to generate revenue at a moment when the city faces a shortfall unknown since the Great Depression. And because the policy would amount to such a dramatic break with the past — with equally dramatic implications for the future — Mayor John Hickenlooper is right: Denver voters should have a chance to approve it.
Don’t misunderstand: I’m not suggesting the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights comes into play here, although you could argue that its spirit would be violated without a vote. TABOR obviously allows fees, which are supposed to offset the cost of a service, but what if that service has long been paid for with general taxes? Then a new fee is like asking the public to pay twice.
If council members are free to start charging for services now funded with property and sales taxes, what’s stopping them from imposing a fee, say, for fire protection and wiping out the shortfall in one fell swoop? Would anyone doubt that Denver residents should get a chance to vote on that idea?
I’m not necessarily opposed to charging for trash pickup, by the way. Before making up my mind, though, I’ll want to see the mayor’s recommendations (due in September) for bridging the $120 million gap. If the result is too ghastly, then it may be time for a $10 monthly charge (which would raise about $20 million annually.)
Even ardent opponents of a fee have to admit that some of the arguments for one make sense. For starters, the city picks up trash at about 165,000 households. And while no one seems to know exactly how many people that represents, it obviously leaves many others out in the cold. As City Council president Jeanne Robb told me, “Buildings with more than seven units are basically subsidizing the rest of us. It’s clearly a service that should have a fee because it doesn’t apply to everyone.”
In addition, Councilman Chris Nevitt observes, “Commercial property pays most of the property tax because of the Gallagher amendment, and they pay private haulers.”
Hickenlooper agrees that the present system is “inherently unfair.” And at the very least, he said Friday, voting on a trash fee would have the advantage of bringing “to a head the question of whether people want the level of services they’ve been accustomed to.”
Nevitt is also rankled by the fact that without a fee, it will be difficult to design a system that reduces the flow to landfills and encourages recycling and composting. “If there is no cost nexus with the customer,” he says, “you have no leverage to incentivize behavior.”
True enough. But then Nevitt envisions using fees in part to expand the recycling and composting programs, which are net burdens to the city, and to reward us for participating in them. As someone who dutifully rolls out a bursting purple bin every two weeks, I have nothing against recycling. But do Denverites want their government — directed by officials like Nevitt, a self-proclaimed “sustainability freak” — punishing and rewarding them for the amount and kinds of trash they produce?
Give them a chance to vote and let’s find out.
E-mail Vincent Carroll at vcarroll@denverpost.com
