Mayor Scott Fadness told the City Council Finance Committee Thursday morning he is aware of the “noise” around town about his proposal to charge a $2 per month administrative fee as part of a proposed city-wide trash collection contract with Republic, but does not plan to make any changes.

“I’m a little bit unapologetic, I guess, about the $2 admin fee, because I want to make sure when a resident calls (City Hall), there is a staff person that picks up the phone and is able to deal with that issue.”

The mayor wants the city to “own” the customer service piece of the trash collection  contract, which will start in January of next year, if City Council puts its stamp of approval on the new pact with Republic.  A public hearing on the final version of the contract is set for Monday, September 9, 7pm.

Fadness recounted the complexities of acquiring HSE Utilities and what many residents were sorting out as a result.  The mayor envisions a number of complications to occur when roughly half of the 32,000 trash customers in Fishers will be switching to another provider.  Also, Homeowners Associations (HOAs) will no longer be handling the billing for their members, each individual customer will be billed beginning in 2025.

Although the city has been encouraging residents to pay their sewer and stormwater bills online, only about 30% pay online, the rest insist on being billed on paper.  Radford says it costs 70 cents to one dollar for each paper bill mailed.  Fadness says that makes up half the $2 monthly trash collection fee.

If any of the bidders for trash service were handling billing and customer service, it would not be free.  The bids would have reflected a higher monthly charge to cover that cost, according to Fadness.

“The last thing I want to do is save people money on trash, and then they’re still frustrated because we are providing poor customer service,” the mayor told the Council Committee.