GREAT FALLS — Cascade County commissioners unanimously passed a resolution of intent to establish new residential and commercial solid waste rates during their meeting on Monday, September 15, 2025.
"The rates have been adjusted. Commercial rate is now a little higher per ticket than the homeowner's rate. And when you shake all that out, that should give us enough money to meet the rising operating costs," said Cascade County Commissioner Joe Briggs.
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Commission Chairman Jim Larson explained the county was facing financial challenges with its current solid waste program.
"We don't like to raise assessments or taxes for our people. The reason for those rates is, we were going in the red running our solid waste," Larson said.
The solid waste program operates as an enterprise fund, which legally requires it to break even without using general tax revenue for support.
"You can't use general tax revenues to support it. So if it costs a million bucks to run it, you have to generate a million bucks from the users of the system to pay for it," Briggs said.
State law requires counties to provide solid waste disposal services, making the rate adjustment necessary for continued operations.
"By statute that we have this service, we have to have this service, that we are given the opportunity to raise rates to be able to give this service to the county. So this is the way we have to do our business," Larson said.
The resolution will come up for final action at the next meeting on September 25 in Great Falls.
