Lightfoot urged to switch to volume-based garbage collection fee

Mayor Lori Lightfoot was urged Friday to replace Chicago’s $9.50-a-month garbage collection fee with a volume-based fee to increase revenue, cut costs and boost a dismal 7% recycling rate.

Aldermen Gilbert Villegas (36^th) and Matt O’Shea (19^th) are now joining the Civic Federation in urging Lightfoot to switch to a volume-based fee.

“It’s fair. And it’s an incentive to recycle. Those who are just paying a fee of $9.50 but not generating as much garbage as your neighbor” shouldn’t have to pay as much, Villegas said.

Villegas is Lightfoot’s choice to chair the City Council’s Economic Development Committee and double as her floor leader.

O’Shea won the right to stay on as Aviation Committee chairman and ride herd over the $8.7 billion O’Hare Airport expansion plan after providing a crucial endorsement that produced the biggest vote totals in the city for Lightfoot.

O’Shea noted his Far Southwest Side Ward that includes Beverly, Mount Greenwood and Morgan Park has “the best recycling record in the city — and it’s deplorable. We’re the smartest kids in summer school.”

A volume-based fee could change that. And it’s a matter of fairness, O’Shea said.

“If you fill up half of a cart per week and I have five carts in front of my house, I’m using more resources. It’s only fair that I would pay more. I do think that would get people to recycle more,” O’Shea said.

“The problem we have with recycling is, it’s not as lucrative as it used to be. And it’s only getting worse. Which is another problem we have to address.”

The $9.50-a-month garbage fee tacked onto water bills was the most controversial element of a tax-laden 2016 budget that also included a $588 million property tax increase that was the largest in Chicago history.

Some aldermen were so concerned the garbage fee could escalate that then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel agreed to cap it at $9.50 per household until after the 2019 election and segregate the revenue from the fee into an enterprise fund.

Now that the cap has expired, Lightfoot is free to go in a different direction.

The mayor’s press secretary, Anel Ruiz, made no commitments. She would only say, “The new administration is looking throughout city departments to assess current practices, to review national best practices and to improve services for residents citywide.”

Eight years ago, Inspector General Joe Ferguson estimated that a volume-based, annual fee of $100 for every 96-gallon cart used could generate as much as $125 million a year. That’s even if the fee triggered a 17% reduction in the amount of household waste.

Lightfoot is buying time to get her arms around a budget shortfall she claims is infinitely “more dire” than the $700 million figure acknowledged by now former Chief Financial Officer Carole Brown. She’s also facing a $1 billion spike in pension payments.

On Friday, O’Shea resurrected his proposal to raise the real estate transfer tax on the sale of homes valued at over $1 million and dedicate all of those revenues for pensions.

“Other people have had ideas on addressing homelessness and lead in the water. But I think our most critical need is this pension crisis. We need to look at that right away,” O’Shea said.

“That’s not gonna solve it. But it’s something we’re talking about because the one thing no one wants to talk about is raising property taxes. And if we don’t come up with new sources of revenue, that’s what we’re gonna be looking at. The people that I represent have made it clear: ‘We don’t want to see our property taxes raised.’”