By Jesse Phillips
Founder, Winter Springs Water Quality Initiative
Last year, we blew the lid off the City’s 59% trash rate hike — a move so brazen it would make a landfill blush. We showed how the City quietly negotiated in bad faith, giving Waste Pro a meager bump while hiking your rates to build a million-dollar slush fund. Now, with the release of the FY 25/26 budget, we finally have proof: the City didn’t just overcharge you — they’re planning to keep doing it for the next decade.
Let’s talk numbers — real, current, City-approved numbers.
In 2025, Winter Springs will collect $4.48 million in trash fees. Of that, just $3.61 million actually goes to collect and dispose of your trash. The rest? Over $870,000 is being siphoned off for things like consultants, internal admin overhead, and a bloated surplus.
That surplus is now projected to hit $2.18 million by the end of 2026. And it gets worse. If nothing changes, the fund will continue to stockpile cash, with annual surpluses of $500k–$800k each year. By 2032, the City could be sitting on $5.5 million in trash money — all funded by rate hikes that you were told were necessary.
The original rate study pitched a “moderate” plan: raise rates 26% in 2024 and again in 2025, then tack on 4% annual increases until 2032. That would raise your monthly trash bill to $37.81. But here’s the dirty truth: based on actual costs in this year’s budget, we could cover everything — landfill, hauling, and storm response — with a flat $27/month fee. No need to raise rates ever again.
The Mayor likes to claim we have the lowest trash rates in the county — but what he won’t tell you is that the City has already passed ordinances locking in automatic rate hikes every year through 2032, ensuring that Winter Springs will soon have the highest residential trash rates in Central Florida. While City Hall brags about not raising the millage rate, they’re quietly turning your utility bill into a stealth tax, using your trash payments to fund bloated reserves and hidden overhead. That’s not fiscal responsibility — that’s gamesmanship, plain and simple.
Let’s be honest: this isn’t about paying Waste Pro or covering landfill fees. It’s about using your utility bill as a hidden tax — a way to pad the General Fund, cover admin salaries, or build reserves so large they could swallow a garbage truck.
That’s why we’re calling for a reset.
We’re urging the City to adopt a “passthrough model” for trash billing. That means:
- Charge residents only what it actually costs to haul and dump trash — nothing more.
- Disclose overhead padding: including consultant fees, administrative salaries, and internal “contract/admin” charges buried in the Solid Waste Fund.
- Cancel all future rate hikes and freeze monthly fees at $27 — what it actually costs today.
- Convert the Solid Waste Fund into a General Fund line item for transparency and oversight — stop using it as a backdoor revenue stream.
This isn’t just about trash. It’s about trust. When the City says it’s not raising taxes, but your trash, water, and stormwater bills go up year after year — that’s a shell game. It’s manipulating the mechanics of the budget to blame Waste Pro for rate hikes they are not requiring.
Winter Springs residents deserve better. We deserve honest accounting, transparent billing, and leadership that works for the people — not the spreadsheet.
Until then, we’ll keep following the trail — even if it stinks.