MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Who knew trash could be so complicated?
That’s the question Tim Ball of the Morgantown Utility Board is asking as a potential merger of water and garbage accounts for Morgantown city residents looms.
“It’s still a work in progress,” he said last week on WAJR’s Morgantown AM. “The city staff and the MUB staff are working on the details. We’re probably not even 50 percent through that.”
Meaning, for now, no one should expect any changes in their garbage or water bills. Eventually, though, the goal is to have residential customers in the City of Morgantown pay both their trash and water bills to MUB, rather than to Republic directly. The City of Morgantown, at the request of City Manager Paul Brake, would pay Republic a flat fee. MUB would then incorporate the garbage bill into their water bills for qualifying customers.
“[Brake] requested that we work up a plan,” Ball said. “And his staff and my staff are working together to identify the issues, identify the solutions to those issues, and try to determine general policies and procedures and just answer the question — can we do this? Can we do it well? Can we do it to a high degree of efficiency and ultimately serve the public better?”
The short answers to those question are simple: yes it can be done. But the deeper you delve into it, the more complex it becomes, Ball said.
“Republic’s service area extends beyond the city,” he said. “And so, we’ll need to make sure we’ve get our billing service area correctly identified. Republic will need to continue billing their non-city customers.”
And, for now, the change — if it ever takes effect — will only apply to residential customers in Morgantown.
“The city’s asked us so far to bill only for residential services, not for commercials,” Ball said. “So we need good guidelines on what criteria establishes what is a commercial service versus a residential service.”
That determination is unique in Morgantown due to the number of multipurpose apartment complexes that house students and full-time residents. Ball said it’s one of several issues that must be resolved before MUB can begin including a quarterly garbage fee on water bills.
“It’s important to the city, and therefore it’s important to us,” he said.
Though, he joked, importance notwithstanding, his enthusiasm wasn’t peaked by this request.
“My analogy is this, I’ve been married 43 years,” Ball said. “I’ve got experience doing a lot of things I’d rather not do.”
Ball said most of the benefit goes to the City of Morgantown, but he did say that the move had potential to cut long-term costs for MUB.
“Anytime we can add any kind of business, whether it’s new water customers or in this case new garbage customers, it helps dilute the fixed cost of the operations on a per customer basis. Everything gets a little less expensive each time we grow. That’s the benefit to MUB.”
The proposal, if adopted, would also require 1.5 new employees at MUB. Ball said that could prove very beneficial.
But, perhaps most importantly, Ball said the trash bill and water bill becoming a one-stop billing experience for customers would not change how much customers pay. Nor, he said, would anyone be at risk of having their water turned off.
“We will not terminate water service if a garbage bill goes unpaid,” he said. “West Virginia law won’t allow that.”
Ball will appear on Morgantown AM on Friday, Jan. 12 to further discuss the ongoing negotiations and details.
The show begins at 9:10 a.m. and can be heard on 104.5 FM, 1440 AM, and online at wajr.com.