Pulaski County PSA Faces Budget Shortfall: What's Causing the Gap?
Mike Reis
The Pulaski County Public Service Authority (better known as the PSA) provides water, sewer, and trash collection service to residents of Pulaski County who do not live in the towns of Pulaski and Dublin. Prior to 2023, the PSA provided trash collection services to the residents and businesses in the Town of Pulaski. In February of 2022, the Executive Director of the PSA stated during a Pulaski Town Council meeting that the PSA loses money picking up trash from Town of Pulaski customers. The “water bill” paid by Town of Pulaski residents included the trash fee set by the PSA, prior to 2023 . After all the damage due to Hurricane Helene, and the extra costs associated with collecting the debris throughout the County, it made me wonder- how does the PSA fund its residential trash collection? Also, did the loss of the customers in the Town of Pulaski now served by GFL increase the cost effectiveness of the PSA? All data taken from documents available on the County website: https://www.boarddocs.com/va/copva/Board.nsf
One of the hard things about understanding government budgets is that they run from July 1 to June 30, so the Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 budget starts July 1, 2022 and ends June 30, 2023. Since the Town of Pulaski switched providers on Jan. 1, 2023 it was halfway through the fiscal year. So we’d need to look at the FY2022 budget to see how much the PSA lost servicing the Town. In all years prior to 2022, the PSA either broke even or had a small loss on residential customers. I am including the $200,000 used to fund the 3 convenience centers (Dublin, Fairlawn, Pulaski).
In December 2022, the PSA staff made calculations about what would change after the Town hired a new trash provider and reviewed it with their board. They calculated that the Town represented 38.5% expenses because they had 3,893 out of 9,507 customers (I calculate 41%). In FY2022, the PSA spent $2.5 million on collecting residential trash. In FY2023 the PSA expected that number to drop by at least $400,000, and even more for subsequent years. Expected revenue from the Town in FY2023 was expected to drop from $810,000 to $405,000, and then to zero. If the PSA was losing money on serving Town customers, a drop in expenses of at least $800,000 should have happened in FY 2024. Surprisingly, the expenses for serving PSA refuse customers in the County has only dropped to $2.2 million in FY24 and FY25, a mere 10% drop. This drop is despite losing almost $800,000 in revenue and only serving 60% of the customer base from the year before.
If the PSA lost money on the Town, as the PSA Executive Director publicly stated, then how did the expenses only drop from $2.5 to $2.2 million? A few possibilities arise out of their documents. The PSA offered a “low volume/user” rate for those folks who did not use the convenience center, and only had trash every other week. Based on a June 2022 PSA Staff analysis, out of 5,614 county customers almost 1,600 (28%) took advantage of that program. That $7 discount for 1,593 customers was a total cost of $134,000 a year, or 8% of total revenue. In addition, since 2022 hundreds of customers have been mailed letters indicating that they have never paid for trash service. The PSA has historically picked up all trash, regardless of the payment status of the customer, and anyone could come into the various drop sites. Based on their own calculations, it seems that hundreds of customers outside of the Towns were not paying enough to offset the costs associated with their service.
In summary, it seems that the PSA has lost almost $500,000 of residential trash revenue, while only reducing their expenses by $250,000. While PSA staff claimed that serving the Town of Pulaski lost them money, the data shows quite the opposite. I understand that the PSA has become very aggressive in both pursuing unpaid balances, unregistered customers, and even set up a system to ensure only customers use the drop sites. In FY2024 they increased their revenue by almost $300,000 but that still was almost $200,000 below their costs. On top of that, administrative costs have gone from $700,000 in FY2022 to over $1.1 million in the current year. If these trends continue, further rate increases and enforcement will be needed for years and will threaten the long term fiscal health of the PSA.
Contact information for the PSA board can be found at: Public Service Authority | Pulaski County, Virginia