TROY – The city administration expects to have a plan in place to deal with trash by the time the preliminary 2019 budget is unveiled in October, the City Council was told Thursday night.

Deputy Mayor Monica Kurzejeski and General Services Commissioner Chuck Wojton outlined the process to reach that point after many city residents turned out to protest the $160 trash fee per housing unit that was enacted in December by the previous City Council in a bipartisan 5-4 vote.

“This is a first step in changing our relationship with garbage,” Mayor Patrick Madden said during the council’s Finance Committee meeting.

Madden explained that the city recycles 6 percent of its trash compared to 23 percent in other cities across the state. With landfill space running out in the Capital Region and tipping fees at dumps anticipated to rise in the future, Madden said is using the trash fee to prepare.

But the three members of the Republican City Council minority picked up where they ended 2017, attacking the trash fee as a way to get around the six votes required last year to exceed the state tax cap. City Council President Carmella Mantello, Councilman Jim Gulli and Councilman Mark McGrath are the only holdovers from the previous council. They all voted against the trash fee which replaced the $28 recycling fee.

The trash fee popped back into view this month as homeowners began receiving their bills for the $160 charge. They face an April 30 payment deadline. It’s been eight months since Madden first introduced the trash fee, originally set at $190 per housing unit.

Hannelore Wilfert of Second Street described the fee as a “thunderbolt” when she received her bill. “It’s a bit of sleight of hand instead of raising taxes,” she said.

The fee is expected to generate $2.2 million in revenue. The money is to be applied towards the work done by city sanitation crews.

But the fee expires at the end of the year. Madden’s administration has to develop a plan to deal with the city’s garbage collection, recycling and disposal before then to present to the City Council. Many residents said they want to see lower trash fees.

The city has hired a recycling coordinator who is contacting the neighborhood groups to ask them to participate in the committee that will draft on the garbage plan. He is scheduling public meetings throughout the summer and will work with the state Department of Environmental Conservation to comply with state regulations to be met, Kurzejeski said.