After nearly two hours of trash talk, Falls Church City Council leaders have settled on two potential options for funding future garbage collection and recycling services.
Council members have set a Sept. 8 date for a public hearing, and a likely final vote, on the long anticipated switch away from paying for trash collection and recycling services via general taxation.
The question bedeviling officials on Monday was at what level to set the new user fees in order to recoup roughly $1 million in trash services annually.
City staff had recommended fees of $292 per year for households using a 35-gallon bin for trash and $327 for those using a 65-gallon bin. But some Council members thought that differential was too small, pressing for an option that would charge $236 and $336, respectively.
Council members unanimously decided to advertise both fee structures for consideration in September. A final decision may depend on whether City Attorney Sally Gillette rules the $100 differential between $236 and $336 can be legally justified.
“We have wrestled with this and, I hope, we can get to the finish line,” Mayor Letty Hardi said after a general consensus emerged on most issues at the Council meeting.
In its place, the city will begin charging residents of single-family homes and townhouses an annual fee. In return, Council members plan to lower the planned fiscal year 2026 tax rate of $1.20 per $100 valuation to $1.185 on all assessed property.
The shift would be a net win for owners of condos, retail and commercial property, who currently contribute through taxes to municipal trash-collection service but do not receive it.
About two-thirds of the city’s cost of trash collection is fixed, the remainder being variable depending on the amount of trash taken from homes.
“The fee has to be related to the cost to provide the service,” Gillette said in voicing some wariness over a $100 differential.
She plans to research the matter and have an answer by the time Council members next convene on the issue.
As Council members got into the weeds of implementing a two-tier policy, Hardi and City Manager Wyatt Shields asked them to keep the big picture in mind.
Falls Church will become the first jurisdiction in the region to encourage a reduction in trash by having residents pay less if they fill smaller bins, they noted.
“It’s ambitious to get this tiering,” the mayor said. “It better helps us meet our policy objectives.”
Asking Council members to “focus on the positive,” Shields suggested Falls Church could be a regional model for variable pricing for trash collection.
“Even Fairfax County, the big guys, are not able to pull that off,” he said.
About 3,100 Falls Church households participate in the weekly municipal trash-collection service. A significant majority currently use the larger bins.
Deputy City Manager Andy Young, who oversaw a recent task force looking at alterations to trash-collection recycling, suggested the city “have an enrollment window, like your insurance,” where residents select smaller or larger bins.
“We can make it an annual thing,” he said of the concept, which won support of Hardi.
The new user fees, whatever they are, will be billed in two installments, the first this fall and the second next spring. They will be separate from, but included with, real-estate tax bills.
After final adoption of all changes next month, city staff and elected officials will go on a communications blitz to keep the public informed.
“As we go through the transition, it’ll be a little bumpy,” Hardi predicted. “Coordinating details of the first year is really important.”
Alterations down the road are likely, one of her colleagues said.
“This is not something that is set in stone for the next hundred years,” said Council member Justine Underhill. “If we do notice some issues, or we want to change the incentive structure [or] whatever else, we can change.”
As part of the proposed changes, households will be provided with a third bin to supplement current trash and recycling containers. That third bin will be used for organic material, including yard waste and food waste.
City officials plan on distributing bins for organics in the spring but will “strive to get the city stood up as quickly as possible,” Young said.
