New Braunfels residents could soon pay more to have their trash and recycling picked up, as city leaders weigh raising the monthly residential rate from $17.66 to $20 starting April 1, with additional $2 increases planned every year through fiscal year 2031. The proposal, unveiled at a city council meeting on October 12, would mark the first change to residential garbage and recycling rates since 2010.
The increase would add $2.34 to residents' monthly bills, or $28.08 a year, according to Community Impact, which first reported on the proposal. Jared Werner, New Braunfels' assistant city manager, told council members the city plans to combine the residential garbage and recycling charges into a single new rate that covers both services. For 16 years, the city had held rates steady at $13.40 a month for trash and $4.26 for recycling, according to a City of New Braunfels announcement, even as operating costs climbed.
A Fund Running in the Red
The push for higher rates follows years of financial strain on the city's Solid Waste Enterprise Fund, which state rules require to sustain itself through customer fees rather than property tax revenue, the city noted. The fund posted $13.2 million in expenditures against just $11.3 million in revenues in fiscal year 2023, according to the same city account, forcing New Braunfels to dip into general fund reserves to cover the shortfall. The city's fiscal year 2027 budget, adopted in August, allocates $22,774,557 to the Solid Waste Enterprise Fund overall.
Several factors have squeezed the fund further. Werner said the city lost $300,000 in revenue after multifamily tenants shifted from residential to commercial billing in 2022, while the recycling market itself flipped from a $200,000 annual revenue source into a $275,000 annual expense, per the October 12 presentation. Meanwhile, the average cost of acquiring heavy vehicles has jumped roughly 44% between 2019 and 2026, and the city now expects to spend $3 million annually on vehicle replacements over the next five years, Werner said.
Cost-Cutting Measures Weren't Enough
City leaders tried to close the gap before turning to residential rates. In October 2024, New Braunfels shifted recycling and green waste pickup from weekly to bi-weekly service, a move tied to participation rates below 50% for recycling and under 10% for green waste, as reported by MySA. That schedule change generated roughly $300,000 in annual personnel savings and allowed the city to eliminate five full-time positions through recurring savings, according to the October 12 presentation.
The city also adopted a three-year phased overhaul of commercial solid waste rates in August 2024, shifting business customers to frequency-based billing in the city's first commercial rate increase since 2018, per the MySA account. New Braunfels additionally rolled out Routeware technology to streamline collection routes and cut down on driver training time. The opening of WM's Mesquite Creek recycling facility in 2025 further helped the city reduce expenses by improving route efficiency, according to the presentation, since recycling trucks had previously made multiple daily trips to material recovery facilities in San Antonio.
How New Braunfels Compares to Its Neighbors
Even with the proposed increase, New Braunfels would remain cheaper than some nearby cities. San Marcos set its single-family residential solid waste fee at $31.57 a month for standard cart service effective October 1, according to the City of San Marcos. Seguin, meanwhile, charges $16.80 for garbage and $3.75 for recycling, totaling $20.55 a month before tax under rates that took effect the same day, per the City of Seguin.
New Braunfels' rapid growth has also reshaped the practical side of collection. The city's population reached 122,492 residents by mid-2025, reflecting 30% to 56% growth since 2020, which forced public works staff to reconfigure collection routes that had gone unchanged since 2010, Hoodline previously reported. The rate proposal follows other recent enterprise fund adjustments, including a drought surcharge hike aimed at keeping municipal utility funds solvent amid rising costs.
What Happens Next
Solid waste charges are collected on combined New Braunfels Utilities bills alongside electric, water and sewer service, and the city's Solid Waste Department recently received roadway safety recognition from the Texas Municipal League during the same October 12 meeting where the rate proposal was introduced, according to Comal.News. Werner said the proposed rate increases would allow the city to recover its costs and maintain its fund balance target going forward.
City staff plan to deliver a final presentation on the proposed rate structure on November 16, followed by a public hearing and first reading on December 14 to update the solid waste ordinance. The New Braunfels dais is set to consider the ordinance change on second and final reading at a meeting on January 11, 2027, before any new rates would take effect that April.
