Garbage rate discount available to cities — if they ask for it

Published 1:30 am Monday, October 20, 2025

During city of Oakville city council meeting on Sept. 8, an agenda item approved in previous years received pushback. Resolution No. 448 concerned the LeMay 2026 rate sheet that reflected a 1.83% increase of the current rates due to a 2.29% increase in the consumer price index.

Oakville isn’t alone in receiving this rate adjustment. All the cities in Grays Harbor County with a garbage, recyclables and yard waste contract with Harold LeMay Enterprises (LeMay) receive the annual rate adjustment letter and rate sheet, and subsequently vote on approving the rate increase. (Only Hoquiam doesn’t contract with LeMay for garbage, recycling, and yard waste services; instead they contract with Hometown Sanitation.)

What prompted the pushback was Item V Miscellaneous of the rate sheet. Where the other miscellaneous services — small appliances, furniture, etc.; large appliances, refrigerators, freezers; and special haul rate packer-load and travel time — had rates, the senior discount for the 65- or 95-gallon monthly was blank.

Without this discount, in 2026 Oakville seniors would pay the 65- or 95-gallon monthly rate of $20.96 or $24.09, respectively.

“We need to come up with other options because I will not vote yes for this one. I just won’t,” said Oakville Councilor Julie Zehe. “It’s going to come down to our seniors and their ability to pay for medications and daily living.”

The council agreed there would be no vote on Resolution No. 448. Zehe and Councilor Allen Werth agreed to explore other waste disposal alternatives, and the council continued working through the agenda.

Because the annual rate adjustments are voted upon by the city council, the LeMay rate sheets are included in the publicly available council packets. A review of the 2024 and 2025 rate sheets indicates that Oakville was not the only city without a senior discount available to its residents.

McCleary, Ocean Shores and Westport also don’t have a senior discount, while Aberdeen, Cosmopolis, Elma and Montesano have a senior discount. Additionally, on the former cities’ rate sheets, under Item V Miscellaneous there isn’t a line item for a senior discount, as Oakville’s rate sheet had. (Hometown Sanitation does offer a senior low-income rate for Hoquiam residents.)

“All the contracts were negotiated prior to me, and they were negotiated by the current management of the time and the cities,” said Roger Swalander, the district manager for LeMay, a position he has held for five years. “So some cities felt really powerful about some things, obviously, so they wanted those in their contract. Some cities may have felt more powerful about something else, so they focused on that.”

An example of an item that a city may specifically have wanted included in their contract is the city of Ocean Shores rate sheet having the option of bear locks per cart under Item V Miscellaneous.

When the other cities had a senior discount added to their rate sheet varies. The city of Elma’s senior discount dates to Resolution 1977-11, which says, “For individuals over the age of 62 who so certify to the Clerk-Treasurer of the city of Elma: One can served weekly within 10 feet of curb.” The 1977 price for the first can of garbage per month: $2.75 plus city charge.

In 2010, the city of Montesano added a senior discount to its rate sheet. And in 2024, at the request of seniors, the city of Aberdeen added a senior rate when they amended their contract with LeMay.

“We had been asked to check every avenue where we could possibly help the people at the lower end of the tier to be able to navigate the financial increases,” said Aberdeen Mayor Douglass Orr. “One of the things [was] looking at that contract also and looking for creating the senior rate.”

At that time, Mayor Orr hadn’t known other cities in the county had a senior rate. As for adding the senior rate to the amended contract with LeMay, “I don’t think there was any problem with it at all,” he said, adding that, “You have to give them a lot of kudos for thinking about the seniors as well.”

“I do advocate to be a partnership with all the cities as far as whenever they need or want to adjust something. Please reach out,” said Swalander. “I feel that we’re a partner, not a just a contractual agreement.”

Which is what Penny “PJ” Haney, the clerk-treasurer for the city of Oakville, did following the Sept. 8 council meeting. She contacted Swalander and asked why the senior discount was removed. To his reply of, “It’s never been in there,” Haney said she asked what it would take to get it added.

“He says, ‘Well, you need to request.’ And I said, ‘I’m requesting,’” Haney said.

Haney subsequently received a new rate sheet with the senior discount added, and at the Oct. 13 city council meeting, the city council approved the LeMay 2026 rate sheet. Oakville seniors would now pay $17.53 for 65- or 95-gallon monthly, a cost-savings of $3.43 or $6.56.

“To some people with low income, $4 and $5 is a huge amount of money,” Haney said. “What may seem insignificant to us is not.”

And a number of seniors benefit from the availability of this discount. Drawing upon population estimates produced by the Washington State Office of Financial Management Forecasting Division in Dec. 2024, the Department of Social and Health Services Aging and Long-Term Support Administration created a statewide map of the population estimates of residents 65 years old or older, as of February 2025. In Grays Harbor County, there were 20,519 seniors. Of these seniors, the 2023 U.S. Census Bureau reports that the percentage of persons 60-74 years old with income below the poverty line is 3.50%, compared to a state average of 1.60 percent.

However, a caveat to the senior discount is it’s only available to the residents of each respective city, a similar discount isn’t available to county residents who contract with LeMay for their garbage services.

“According to RCW 81.77.195 [Discounts for low-income customers] solid waste collection companies may offer low-income rates if requested by the county,” Tiffany Johnson, communications manager for the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission, wrote via email. “To initiate this process, the county must submit a Solid Waste Management Plan (SWMP) to the commission for review. This request for low-income rates must be included in the SWMP, which the solid waste company will reference when applying for these rates.

The county’s SWMP, which covers the years of 2020-2025, was adopted Jan. 5, 2021. County Administrator Sam Kim shared via text that the Solid Waste Advisory Committee is currently working on the required update with the Department of Ecology. “It is a minor housekeeping update, so we should have it completed by mid-2026,” Kim wrote.