Jefferson residents may soon see an increase in order for a service to continue to be provided.

The Jefferson City Council approved the first reading to amend an ordinance to increase yard waste fees. City Administrator Scott Peterson says the increased monthly fees for the yard waste site at Daubendiek Park is proposed to go from $1 to $3 and the yard waste stickers will be $2 instead of $1. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio the city has a contract with a company that grinds down all of the brush and yard waste, but now expenses have started to outpace revenues.

“Mainly due to the Emerald Ash Borer being around that we see so much more brush and trees out there then what we had ever seen before. Here we are, a few weeks into the new fiscal year we’ve already spent the amount on grinding for that was budgeted for this year. We just know that the need out there is going to greatly outpace what revenues would generate.”    

Peterson says the proposal is from the sanitation and recycling committees and he is confident the increased fees will cover the cost to grind more materials down. He adds that because this is an ordinance change, there will need to be two more required readings and so residents could see the fees go up as late as September.