La Grande City Council approves 2.9% Waste Pro rate increase
By Garrett Christensen on Friday, December 5th, 2025 in More Top Stories Northeastern Oregon News
LA GRANDE – During a regular session on the evening of Wednesday, December 3, the La Grande City Council passed a resolution approving a slight increase for Waste Pro collection fees for city of La Grande residents. The 2.9% cost increase for collection services will go into effect January 1st, 2026.
In practice, it’s expected to translate to around a $0.95 increase per month for regular services for La Grande customers, or around $0.22 per collection. The increase, which is below the 3.3% reported by the consumer price index, is a result of several factors, such as increasing costs of equipment, upkeep, labor, and general inflation. One particular cost noted by Darin Larvik is the current 10-year contract with the Baker Landfill, which mandates a 5% annual increase every year.
Long term, Larvik noted that smaller, more incremental rate increases are generally preferential to more infrequent but substantial increases.
Note that La Grande is not unique in approving the rate increase. On November 13, Union County also approved a 2.9% increase for solid waste collection and disposal rates, the full breakdown of which can be found here. A full breakdown of factors for the increase, as provided by Waste Pro in a letter to the city, is also below:
- Labor:
- We face continuing labor challenges, including difficulty attracting and retaining qualified CDL drivers.
- The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) necessitates maintaining a larger labor pool, increasing costs.
- For 2025 we budgeted a 5% increase to our labor costs, but actual costs this year are already up 6.2%.
- Equipment:
- Replacing aging equipment becomes increasingly expensive as new tariffs contribute to increased purchase cost. Two years ago, a new truck cost $350,000; that same truck is now $442,000.
- Maintenance costs are up with the cost of repair parts also affected by tariffs.
- Landfill
- The 10-year contract with the Baker Sanitary Landfill includes a 5% annual increase effective January 1st.
- Insurance:
- Insurance costs continue to rise dramatically. Liability, health, property, and worker’s compensation insurance premiums are all increased at least 20% year-to-date. Renewals are due in April with no expectation of lowering.
- The limited number of insurance providers in the market restricts our ability to negotiate more competitive rates, especially for such a specific type of facility as the Transfer Station.
- Recycling:
- Recycling market prices are decreased as much as 30% from October of 2024, reducing a crucial revenue source that previously helped to offset operating costs.
- Transfer Station:
- The baler and compactor are nearly 20 years old. Repair costs are escalating rapidly due to more frequent breakdowns and more expensive parts.
- We expect to replace the Transfer Station compactor in the near future at an estimated cost of $1.4 million.
