HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — March 2024 is the cutoff date for any movement or decision on initiatives that could positively impact the Guam Solid Waste Authority’s financial situation, or the agency may have to decide to push forward with a $5 residential rate increase by that time, according to Irvin Slike, GSWA general manager.
“March is getting towards the point of no return where we have to do something if other decisions haven’t been made,” Slike told directors during a GSWA board meeting Tuesday.
Discussions with the Public Utilities Commission about a rate increase would have to begin by March, according to Slike. If the commission approves, the rate increase would have to come by late spring or early summer to ensure the agency ends fiscal year 2024 positively, he added.
The basic residential rate is $30 per month. The commercial rate is $156 per ton, with a discount. Otherwise, the commercial rate would be about $171 per ton, which is the same as the government rate. The rates have remained the same for about a decade.
Earlier this year, the GSWA board authorized management to petition for rate increases with the PUC. Four rate scenarios were presented to the board with all options calling for the same rate increases in 2024: $35 for the residential rate; $179 for the commercial rate; and $190 for the government rate.
GSWA pays about $2 million per year for the post-closure care of the former Ordot dump. Moreover, a major balloon payment is projected to come due in a few years’ time, which would result in significant cost increases for GSWA ratepayers.
A potential out to those costs came in late September when the government of Guam and the federal government reached a partial consent decree in a 2017 lawsuit regarding responsibility for Ordot dump. This will see the federal government pay nearly $50 million to Guam for past response costs related to the former dump.
Bill 182-37 would create the Ordot Dump Reserve Fund, which would be used to store those consent decree payments and use them exclusively for Ordot dump’s post-closure plan. Another measure, Bill 165-37, proposes a universal garbage collection program on Guam.
Both measures have already gone through a public hearing.
Rate decrease possible
Combining the consent decree funds with an expanded customer base – possible through universal trash collection – would actually allow GSWA to offer a rate decrease to residential customers as well as a reduced rate for eligible customers, Slike stated previously.
A PUC packet for the rate increases presented earlier this year has been prepared as well as a “potential packet” for a rate decrease in light of the consent decree and universal trash collection, Slike stated Tuesday.
According to discussions that day, nothing has been submitted to the PUC yet. Slike stated that a preliminary meeting with the PUC was scheduled for November, but that was pulled with news of the partial consent decree happening and because universal trash collection could potentially be implemented.
“It’s a point of information that, based on the (financial) trends, we need some type of movement. We would go back to the $5 rate increase if there’s no indication that either (relief) is viable,” Slike said.
A Guam Solid Waste Authority worker collects trash Thursday, Sept. 14, 2023 in Yona.
