RAYMONDVILLE — Residents are going to feel a new pinch in their pocketbooks soon.
Earlier this week, city commissioners voted to boost garbage and brush pick-up rates for the first time in seven years.
“I don’t like the increase,” Mayor Gilbert Gonzales said. He said the new rates go into effect Oct. 1.
However, a hike in the Consumer Price Index has led Republic Services to boost the rates it charges cities, City Manager Eleazar Garcia said.
In recent years, Garcia said, city officials have “swallowed” smaller increases.
“We could live with it,” Gonzales said.
But now, the city can’t afford to absorb more.
“We have to do it or we lose money,” Gonzales said of the rate hike.
So officials are boosting monthly rates for garbage and brush pick-up from $16.59 to $17.71 a month.
That means a total monthly increase of $1.12.
“We’re passing on the cost,” Garcia said. “That’s all we’re doing.”
In 2012, the city increased its monthly rate for garbage and brush pick-up to $16.59, Garcia said.
The year before, he said, the rate stood at $16.33.
