Coral Gables City Hall
Pedro Portal
pportal@miamiherald.com
Over 11,000 Coral Gables residents who pay city garbage collection fees are expected to get a $75 refund check in the coming months.
The savings were part of a last-minute deal that Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago, Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson and Commissioner Richard Lara made to get Commissioner Ariel Fernandez on board with keeping the city’s property tax rate the same for 2027.
Fernandez initially seemed set on keeping the tax rate the same but later agreed with Commissioner Melissa Castro that it should be lowered, leading to a lengthy negotiation on the dais. Fernandez agreed to join the others on maintaining the city’s tax rate if households could receive a partial refund on their garbage fees from the city’s surplus funds.
The deal, which also secured funding for the senior and veteran relief grants Fernandez wanted, was made on Sept. 29 during an all-day City Commission meeting and budget hearing. It was struck as city leaders grappled with crafting a budget that could continue to cover city services ahead of a possible future with millions less in property tax revenue, depending on how Florida voters decide on the state’s Amendment 3 in November.
“We have an affordability crisis in Florida, and Coral Gables residents are not immune to that,” Fernandez told the Miami Herald. “As I said during the commission meeting, money does not belong in government coffers, it belongs on taxpayer’s pockets.”
In the meeting, Coral Gables Finance Director Diana Gomez said the city would have to set aside over $800,000 from its expected surplus for fiscal year 2026 in order to issue the refund checks and fund the grants for the upcoming 2027 fiscal year.
While Lago, Anderson and Lara eventually agreed to Fernandez’s terms, they expressed frustration over the decision. They said they believed residents would have preferred the money that will be spent on the checks — the city is expecting to refund at least $832,500 — to go toward funding the operation and maintenance of The Underline, a 10-mile linear park that runs underneath the Metrorail. City leaders had to agree that day on how much money to provide the park.
Fernandez said the refund checks will provide “meaningful relief to our residents.”
When will the Gables trash refund checks go out?
The city told the Herald it expects over 11,000 residents who have paid garbage fees, either to the city directly or through their tax bill, will receive a refund check in the coming months.
Staff is still figuring out logistics, including when to mail out the checks. It will likely be after November or sometime in 2027. That’s partly because some customers haven’t paid their solid waste fees yet, which are usually paid through property tax bills and issued Nov. 1.
Who won’t be eligible for a refund: condominiums and apartments served by Waste Management, according to the city. For those who rent a Gables home, it’ll depend on who pays the city’s fee.
Miami Herald
Michelle Marchante covers the pulse of healthcare in South Florida and also the City of Coral Gables. Before that, she covered the COVID-19 pandemic, hurricanes, crime, education, entertainment and other topics in South Florida for the Herald as a breaking news reporter. She recently won first place in the health reporting category in the 2025 Sunshine State Awards for her coverage of Steward Health’s bankruptcy. An investigative series about the abrupt closure of a Miami heart transplant program led Michelle and her colleagues to be recognized as finalists in two 2024 Florida Sunshine State Award categories. She also won second place in the 73rd annual Green Eyeshade Awards for her consumer-focused healthcare stories and was part of the team of reporters who won a 2022 Pulitzer Prize for the Miami Herald’s breaking news coverage of the Surfside building collapse. Michelle graduated with honors from Florida International University and was a 2025 National Press Foundation Covering Workplace Mental Health fellow and a 2020-2021 Poynter-Koch Media & Journalism fellow.
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