AUBURN – Auburn landlords said they’d rather pay higher property taxes than trash collection fees Wednesday night.

“Spread the wealth. That’s what I say,” said Lewiston resident Marcel Roberts, who owns seven apartment buildings in Auburn. “If you raise property taxes, it’s spread over everybody in town and everybody pays less. This way, it’s discrimination against landlords.”

Roberts was among 40 area landlords who crammed the City Council chambers in the Auburn City Building to complain about the city’s plan to begin charging for trash collections at apartments of four or more units.

City Manager Pat Finnigan said the city hopes to begin charging $1.54 per apartment per week beginning in December – about $80 annually per unit. The new fee should generate $30,000 for the city in the current fiscal year, if approved.

The plan is part of changes to the budget the council approved last spring, she said.

“This was a difficult budget, but every year is difficult,” she said. “What we did this year was try and keep any tax increases to a minimum and still deliver the services people want and need.”

Councilors approved the $58.8 million budget in June, passing a 94-cent property tax hike citywide balanced with $780,000 in budget cuts. Those cuts include the new trash fee revenues, she said.

Councilors are scheduled to vote on trash fees at their meeting Monday.

“The budget this year needs to be reduced by $30,000,” Finnigan said. “If they don’t approve this, that money is going to have to come from somewhere.”

Landlords said they’d rather see that money spread among all taxpayers, where it would amount to pennies.

“Spread over everyone in Auburn, that $30,000 doesn’t amount to a lot,” said Auburn’s Robert Leighton, who owns two apartment buildings. “It adds up a lot faster if you just spread it over 300 landlords.”

Many of the landlords on Wednesday said they planned to attend Monday’s council meeting.

staylor@sunjournal.com

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