GRU Authority moves toward removing trash and stormwater fees from utility bills
BY JENNIFER CABRERA
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At the March 12 GRU Authority meeting, the board voted to move toward removing trash and stormwater fees from customers’ utility bills and approved a natural gas supply agreement.
25% drop in residential 1,000 kWh bills since March 2023
During CEO comment, CEO Ed Bielarski presented a chart from the Florida Municipal Electric Association, showing that GRU’s residential bill for 1,000 kWh, which was the highest in the state in March 2023, has dropped to 12th overall and 7th for municipal utilities. In March 2023, GRU’s total bill was $182.63, and in January 2025, it was $136.60.
Moving trash and stormwater fees to property tax bills
Bielarski told the board that GRU has handled billing for solid waste and stormwater fees for the City of Gainesville for many years and “it’s been a very amicable relationship,” but one of the goals of the board is to reduce utility bills, and “when you have other things on the bill, it makes it very difficult for people to make an apples-to-apples comparison.”
Bielarski said the City Commission’s recent decision to increase trash collection fees by 20% led him to think “a little harder” about ending the agreement, which requires 24 months’ notice, and he recommended doing that even though it will reduce GRU’s revenue by about $800,000 a year. He asked the board to allow him to continue working with the City Manager to modify the agreement. The fees will likely be added to property tax bills if the agreement ends.
Director Craig Carter made a motion to direct the CEO to pursue removing the trash and stormwater fees from the GRU bills and work with the City to do that.
Carter said he was concerned about the loss in revenue, but “as I talk to people – and very well-educated, respected people, people that work in [Chair Lawson’s] hospital as doctors – they cannot separate the bottom line of this bill versus the bottom line of a Clay Electric bill.”
Chair Eric Lawson said he would like Bielarski to come back with ideas to offset the loss of revenue “because I agree with the decision and where we’re going, but I would be hopeful just to know that we found other ways to make up for that.” Bielarski promised to “find those savings, and I will bring that back.”
The motion passed unanimously, with Director Chip Skinner absent.
In other business, the board unanimously approved a natural gas supply agreement.
Only students in a studio use 1000 kWH. I hate when they use this threshold.
And not only that but the only way they got to it is by jacking up KwH at higher levels. It’s just an accounting trick, they haven’t dropped rates a penny. My bill skyrocketed after this change. Everyone’s summer bills are going to be much higher and January was already high. Was optimistic, but this board has been a joke.
First of all you nimrod, the graph would show by 1000 kWh anyway because it’s the state wide municipal and iou companies compared together, secondly you obviously haven’t seen graphs over the years that showed the same way. And lastly you say rates haven’t dropped while the rates themselves haven’t dropped fuel has, and on top of that the rates have not went up and will not go up as the city commission would have continued to do through 2030. So get you head….
My wife and I rarely exceed 600 kWH per month. We have an average size house, upgraded over the years, with as many low energy replacement devices as we can afford.
That is great for you all as a couple but families tend to go over that. Ours was 1100 last month.
Shut the AC off and open the windows.
Am I reading this correctly: GRU is trying to drop trash and storm water fees to drop from their bills and give it to city of Gainesville ? So two bills instead of one? How are they making it cheaper ?
It says in the article that the fees will be on your property tax bill, which is how Alachua County already does it.
Those fees should never have been on your utility bill to begin with. They belong on your property tax bill but the City wanted to favor the owners of big developments and apartment buildings while hurting poor people instead.
renters should have to pay directly for the services they use including the stormwater and refuse. Rents will just adjust accordingly. I will be raising my rentals by 15% come July.
Exactly how are your renters USING stormwater to where it is costing you as the owner?
Because the storm water and refuse within the city is a city owned bill not an actual Gru service. So yes they are wanting to drop it from the Gru bill because Gru is not the same e increasing the rates on the city owned portion of the bill.
“Stormwater Fee” vs Wastewater
I believe the article is referring to the stormwater fee, which is supposed to be for maintaining stormwater runoff ditches and drainage ponds. It is supposed to be a sort of user fee, but is often used more as a tax e.g. neighborhood that maintains its own ponds still has to pay stormwater fee.
Wastewater refers to sewage. Wastewater charges are generally based on water usuage, as it is assumed that water coming in must go out.
Fixed, thank you. That’s what happens when you’re writing up the GRU Authority meeting while listening to the school board meeting!
🫣I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Are you okay?🤪
Thanks for doing all you do to keep us informed.
That’s a lot to ask for anyone. 🙂
That would explain the local politicians.
In my opinion I strongly feel it is time to cut all ties with the city and have the monthly GRU bill reflect services and fees related directly to our consumption of electricity, gas, and water.
In changing this billing format residents can more easily see the reduction in their GRU costs as opposed to the ever increasing fees and costs of funding the mismanaged and bloated city budget.
True statement, with facts!
How are we going to pay for trash pickup then? Are we all gonna get the big size black trash can and are our property taxes going up in the city to pay for this? I will also have to increase rents on tenants who live in duplex, triplex, etc that pay their own trash & storm water bill on their current utility bills…
This means I will have to increase rents to cover what the tenant was paying…so, rents will be going up at least $50/mo to cover this.
Utility bills will be going down for renters, but their rents will be increased two fold to cover the cost to the landlord to cover trash, etc.
Say hello to the new bill collector,
Won’t that be something? People may be evicted not for paying their rent, but failing to pay their garbage bill.
And the liberals actually believe those looking down on them from the dais care.
No, their rents will increase the cost raised on the landowner’s property tax bill and included in the tenant’s rent. All increased costs and aggravation gets passed on to the tenant by an increase in their monthly rent.
They will be evicted for not paying their rent.
You cannot see an accurate representation of utility costs if every time GRU makes adjustments, the City raises the costs collected by GRU and passed through to the City (solid waste and stormwater). Even if GRU isn’t able to lower utility costs but the City raises the solid waste cost by 20% all customers will see is that their GRU bill went up therefore “GRU is raising the bill”. Do you an accurate representation of utility costs? The GRU must remove the costs that are just pass throughs to the City. Otherwise, the City will continue to raise their portion of the utility bill and customers will never see any changes that GRU is able to make.
Exactly, the City is trying an underhanded tactic to raise taxes and put the blame on GRU.
GRU is the only one actually trying to lower costs, and we will continue to see that over time on our bills.
There is no reason for GRU to collect these taxes just to pass them through to the City.
If the City wants to tax us, they need to do it to our face and stop trying to hide it in GRU bills.
Stormwater is a property tax (called a fee by the greedy politicians) so it already belongs on the annual property tax.
County waste collection (here and in other places I have lived in) were billed by the garbage company and their responsibility to collect.
The $800K is for a service provided. GRU should not be looking for a new source to replace it if they stop that service. GRU is in the business of providing electricity, water, and sewage (plus GRUCom, a voluntary service). The bill should be broken into detailed electric total and water/sewage.
This makes sense but you are not accounting for waste servixes having no infrastructure for billing individual residences, since GRU handled all the personnel and equipment and office space for this agreed-upon service.
It would be a nightmare to have individual households pay for trash, esp if renters and households have to set up their own accounts. What happens when they fall behind or cannot pay?? What happens when solid waste stops serving a house or multiunit building? The amount of illegal dumping will grow off the charts.
GRU is not merely saying that they want to make bills reflect the gas, water, electricity —- they are saying that they want to stop providing services to the solid waste department, which will cost everyone more (except GRU).
Why? So the ratepayers aren’t painfully reminded every month how much GRU (City run into debt) is costing us every month?
But *trash* use IS directly tied to consumption at each residence and trash bin cost seems a poor fit for property tax bill, esp bc residences can up or drop the size/gallons of their trash bins and I just cannot see property tax office overseeing or tracking that.
So I can see why it is convenient for customers for GRU to include the cost of trash for a residence on their bill.
Otherwise trash should be billed as a separate entity — and that means a new office/staffing/billing services that raise trash rates.
It would be better to move stormwater fees OFF GRU, since they are unrelated to consumption or water used (bc stormwater is not wastewater, as someone already pointed out here.)
But to save customers and the city money, trash should stay ON.
Everyone will get the same size big can.
All of Bielarski’s comparisons omit the sky high fixed and bundled charges attached to the ELECTRIC METER, and the pyramided taxes, and surcharges. They are deceptive and misleading as such.
Now we just need to eliminate property taxes.
I’d argue it’s the politicians who should be eliminated but unfortunately, the constituency who keep electing them are anything but highly educated.
As it stands now homeowners are at risk of having their electricity cut off because they couldn’t afford to pay the electric plus trash and stormwater fees.
Rent in apartments won’t change as they have dumpsters which they pay for directly with the hauler. People who have bins have always been able to call the city and change their size up and down and they can pro rate the difference or you change size at your next tax year. And guess what when it’s on your property tax you are still paying all this as a monthly fee just to the escrow company instead as a part of mortgage. If anything the tax collector is designed to be a bill collector for this vs a utility company having to do all this as a 3rd party vendor for the city.
At my units, the tenants pay for everything they use. Each unit gets their own garbage can through GRU. Each unit pays their own water, waste water, garbage can. I just provide the unit. If the tenant doesn’t pay for their can, then I will be paying their garbage bill through my property tax and will increase their rent to cover the cost plus some extra for the aggravation.