Mayor’s increase in county solid waste fee halved to 1%

Written by Miami Today on July 9, 2025

Miami-Dade commissioners, who in June rejected a 2% solid waste fee hike for their 354,000 customers, reluctantly voted last week for 1% instead and vowed to search for revenues that could keep costs flat in the final Sept. 3 vote.

Even that trimmed increase failed to win over four of the 12 commissioners present for the July 1 vote. Mayor Daniella Levine Cava had recommended an added 2% and said a 1% rise would surely mean larger increases as soon as next year to keep the system going.

The commission is under time pressure. If it doesn’t set a fee for solid waste by late September, under state law it can’t charge customers to collect their garbage. The rate must stay in place for 12 months.

The commission agreed unanimously with Raquel Regalado’s motion to seek new revenues from solid waste, ordering the mayor to issue a call by July 8 to create a landfill methane gas concession and to look for buyers for cardboard waste within 30 days.

“I continue to say that there are revenue opportunities within this department,” Ms. Regalado said. “My issue with this particular department is that it has the opportunity to generate revenue and instead it chooses to place the entire burden on the back of the taxpayer.”

“This department has to stop thinking about we pay someone to take the trash and then they make money from that trash,” she said. “That is not OK. We have to have a piece of the revenue that other people make from the trash that we give them.”

“Right now, we’re burning methane. We’re literally burning money,” she said of landfill burn-offs.

“If there are issues that we can bake into this and efficiencies that we can… because I do believe that during the budget time and assessment-setting time are uniquely the time when we can compel the administration to change operations,” said Commissioner Oliver Gilbert III, who had moved to increase fees 2%.

The commission last year found itself playing catch-up from years of refusing to raise trash charges while county costs rose. Service fees to customers sat at $439 a year from 2006 to 2017. The charge then rose to $464, followed by $484 in both 2019 and 2020. Last year, the commission raised rates $150 to $697. The mayor this year sought a $14 increase, and the commission landed on a $7 rise to $704, with the ability to cut that before it’s final in September.

“If an ordinance is not enacted there will be no fee for next year,” County Attorney Geri Bonzon-Keenan cautioned. A rate must be in effect prior to Sept. 25, she said.

Commissioners discussed raising the rate by 2% and then sending rebate checks if costs can be cut or other revenues created, but they agreed that the checks would cost more to issue than rebates would total.

“We welcome the opportunity to have your input on additional savings,” the mayor said. “We have found about $5 million in savings” over the past year. That, she said, is why she sought a 2% fee increase instead of more that otherwise would have been needed. The increase she recommended, she said, equated to 14 cents per waste pickup.

Said Commissioner Keon Hardemon, “A 2% raise is a cost that is not too burdensome for Miami-Dade residents.”

“With the deficit that the administration is showing us at $400 million,” said commission Chairman Anthony Rodriguez, “I think nothing should be off the table, nothing. We are essentially running a business…. A $5 million savings in 12 months does not suffice.”