Mystery, confusion and anger attends Upland’s efforts to outsource billing on a host of traditional municipal services or services provided under city-controlled franchises to the county.
Unknown to residents is whether the change has already been effectuated and whether mix-ups that have already manifested will result in double, triple or quadruple billings, missed payments, penalties, fines and, in some cases, homeowners’ loss or potential loss of their properties.
There is a modicum of outright outrage as some city residents perceive the billing changeover as a ploy by city officials to increase resident costs without any improvement in service or savings to customers, while reducing the workload of what many residents in the City of Gracious Living see as an underworked workforce.
At present, or at least until recently, Upland residents could come to City Hall to pay their bills for municipal services or otherwise make online payment of their bills for water and sewer service, their trash service provided to city residences and businesses by Upland’s franchised trash hauler Burrtec Industires, apply for and/or pay for building permits, renew animal licenses for household pets, or pay for household members’ participation in youth recreation classes and activities, adult recreation classes and activities or senior citizen recreation classes and activities.
More recently, however, Upland city officials have been inching toward abandoning those policies and practices and instead is ready to or has already handed billing for those services to San Bernardino County.
In this regard, Upland is emulating the City of Fontana, which on February 27, 2024 amended its contract with its franchised waste hauler, which also happens to be Burrtec Waste Industries contract that introduces several important enhancements for our community. These improvements are designed to benefit all residents and ensure efficient waste management services.
. The amendment will This means cleaner and safer public spaces for everyone. Burrtec will now be responsible for staffing qualified personnel to operate and maintain our Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) facility located at 16454 Orange Way. This will help us manage hazardous waste responsibly and ensure the safety of our environment. The amendment allows Burrtec to streamline residential solid waste service charges by placing them directly on the property tax roll. In return for this administrative shift, Burrtec will offset the associated cost savings from switching to this method by reducing the monthly street sweeping service charges paid by the City. This adjustment aims to streamline billing processes and deliver cost savings to residents and businesses by avoiding a rate increase next year. These enhancements reflect our commitment to improving waste management services and fostering a cleaner, more sustainable environment for Fontana. That vote entailed moving, as of July 1, 2024, Fontana residents’ and businesses’s fees for trash and recycling services onto annual property tax bills.
While Fontana touted the change as one that would result in “immediate cost savings [and] also promote environmental responsibility for the future,” and expand street sweeping services to cover a wider range of areas within our city limits, including streets, medians, State Highways and medians, commercial zones, and the Metrolink Station Parking lot and bus turnaround,” residents in Fontana were and remain skeptical about whether the change was salutary or disadvantageous. Whereas the city had said making the tax roll adjustment would result in “stable rates for residents,” it turns out that the city’s residential solid waste collection rates will increase on July 1, 2025.
A promise made to Fontana residents was that “By shifting to annual property tax billing, we’re reducing the need for quarterly mailings, which saves paper and energy, contributing positively to our environment.”
A downside not spoken about, however, is that any sort of prolonged arrearage on one’s tax bill can result in the county providing two warnings to the delinquent homeowner, whereupon a process is initiated that ultimately culminates in a tax lien sale of the property effectuated through an auction.
Crossed wires/missed communications resulting in lien sales in Upland are absolutely possible given that many residents are signed up for automatic or recurring payments through their banks and, as has proven to be the case in Fontana, some mistakenly assumed the banks would properly route the payments to the county. On the resident side, some residents never came through with the extra money charged on their tax bill because they did not have the money in November because it had been routed elsewhere and they did not have sufficient funds to satisfy what had been transformed into a double billing after their banks had continued to divert the money earmarked for utility payments.
While not enough time has elapsed in Fontana for the tax liens to have progressed to the auction stage, some homeowners are on a trajectory to eventually lose their homes.
In the case of Upland, the utility payments will not be limited to trash service but water and sewer service, as well.
Some Upland residents, ones who are already upset at City Hall being open four rather than five days per week, see the switchover to county billing as one more way to lessen the workload on city employees. If the city were to make commensurate downward adjustments in the number of city employees, some of these residents have said, they would go along with the change. But the city’s taxpayers and ratepayers will see no benefit, they say, as there is to be no downward adjustments to city staff.
“If this was meant to save money by cutting city staff and streamlining operations, that would be one thing,” a longtime city resident told the Sentinel. “This isn’t going to do that. It will mean less work for city employees with no drop in pay, more money coming into the mayor and city council in political donations from Burrtec and Burrtec continuing on as the lord of the city and lord of the county as it becomes more and more powerful.” The resident said some Uplanders were trying to get their fellow residents “to start thinking about this, to understand what the people down at City Hall are doing.”.