Residents will see their monthly trash bill jump from $20 to $25.25 in October and to $30.81 by October 2027 after the City Council voted unanimously March 17 to renew its hauling contract without cutting service.

The 5-0 vote preserved twice-a-week collection and weekly bulk pickup even as the cost of a new five-year deal with Coastal Waste and Recycling forced what city officials called a “rate realignment” to match a surging waste industry.

For years, Oldsmar’s $20 monthly bill has been a quiet outlier in Pinellas County — a rate that stayed frozen even as the price of diesel, steel and labor climbed nationwide. Since 2021, the city has operated under an agreement with Coastal Waste that provided just an 8% increase over five years.

While that was a win for ratepayers, it left the city’s Solid Waste Enterprise Fund — a self-sustaining account that cannot legally draw from property taxes — running on fumes.

“The 8% increase over the last five years has not kept pace with the actual cost to provide the service,” Administrative Services Director Cindy Nenno told the council.

For years, the city shielded residents from the market by dipping into fund reserves to cover the gap. But with the contract set to expire in September, that cushion has worn thin. The industry is battling a severe shortage of CDL-certified drivers and a spike in the cost of specialized collection vehicles, Nenno said, leaving the city no choice but to catch up to market reality.

The council was presented with three options, each offering a different trade-off between cost and service. The cheapest would have moved bulk pickup to once a month and eliminated Saturday collection. While it would have limited the initial rate hike to $3.75, city leaders immediately saw the potential for neighborhood blight.

“My main concern is the bulk waste going down to once a month,” Vice Mayor Steve Graber said, pointing to the reality of a community with a high rental population. “When they move out, there’s some stuff they’re not going to take with them. If it’s a mattress or a box spring and it’s there for potentially a month … everybody’s going to notice.”

Council member Valerie Tatarzewski said the few dollars saved were not worth the risk. A mattress sitting in the Florida rain for three weeks, she noted, quickly transforms from a service-level decision into a code enforcement headache.

Tatarzewski also questioned eliminating Saturday pickups, which would have forced a reshuffling of routes into a Monday-through-Friday window. She said cramming more homes into fewer days could mean cans sit at the curb longer and confuse families who have timed their routines to the Saturday morning truck for years. Coastal Waste representatives said the change would be a “day adjustment” rather than a delay, but the council remained skeptical.

While a roughly 50% increase over two years sounds steep, the city is framing it as a return to competitive normalcy. In Safety Harbor and Dunedin, residents already pay similar or higher rates, often for once-a-week collection. Oldsmar residents will continue to receive double the pickup frequency at a price that remains mid-tier for the region.

To prevent another large catch-up hike down the road, the new contract includes a transparent split in the bill. About 35% will track tipping fees — the price Pinellas County charges to dump trash at the landfill — while the remaining 65% for collection will be capped at a 5% annual increase tied to the Consumer Price Index.

“Not changing something that’s not broken is a good idea always,” council member Cindy Olmstead said.