Dighton large trash bag rolls go to $30 on Jan. 1 as selectmen hold off on higher health permit fees

DIGHTON Dighton residents will pay $30 for a large roll of town trash bags and $15 for a small roll starting Jan. 1, 2027, after the Board of Selectmen approved the Board of Health's price increase at the town's annual fee hearing Wednesday night.

The selectmen held off on the health board's other request, a $25 increase on most of the permits it issues, and tabled it after asking the department to show what it spends and what it takes in. They approved the Cemetery Committee's higher burial fees with one change. They also set new hourly rates for the private snow plow contractors the town hires each winter.

All three selectmen, Chairman Mark Pacheco, Clerk Glen Cabbage and Peter D. Caron, were present, and each vote was taken by voice.

What trash bags will cost

A large roll now costs $28 and a small roll $14, on the Board of Health's price sheet. In an Oct. 20 letter to the selectmen, the health board said the town is "still annually falling into a deficit" on trash disposal and that the higher prices "will not completely eliminate the deficit."

Health Agent Elizabeth Moreira told the selectmen the trash account would end up about $67,000 short at today's prices and about $30,000 short with the increase. "So we'll still be in the red, but not as much," she said.

Moreira said the only way to close the gap is for residents to throw away less, and pointed to the town's compost bins and the swap shed at the transfer station, where residents can leave and take lightly used goods for free. The swap shed opens on Saturdays when a volunteer can staff it, she said. The selectmen were told a grant paid for it.

The health board had not proposed a start date, so the selectmen wrote Jan. 1 into their motion. The bags are sold at the Board of Health office in the lower level of Old Town Hall, 1111 Somerset Ave., through the back door, at Hannaford at 255 Warner Blvd. in Taunton and at seven Dighton stores: Johnny's Market, Mendoza's Liquors, Rochelle's, Route 44 Liquors, Under the Sun, Value Gas and Winthrop Street Gulf. The price sheet tells residents to pay no more than the listed price and to tell the Health Department if a store charges more.

Health permits on hold

The health board's letter asked for $25 more on nearly every permit it issues, from restaurants and food trucks to private wells and septic repairs, which it said would bring in about $1,225 more a year. It based the amount on what surrounding towns with similar demographics charge.

Selectmen questioned basing the increase on what nearby towns charge and asked whether the new fees were tied to what the department spends. Members raised the cost to businesses and to residents who sell baked goods from a home kitchen. Moreira said the department runs in the red on septic inspections and that the $9,000 budgeted for the inspector it pays for perc tests and septic inspections was nearly spent before November. She told the board she would bring back a comparison of what the department spends and what it takes in, and the selectmen voted to table the permit fees.

Burial fees and sewer inspections

The Cemetery Committee's new schedule raises a single grave interment from $1,000 to $1,200 and a cremation interment from $350 to $425. In the Veterans Cemetery, veterans are still buried at no charge, while a spouse in a single grave pays $1,200 instead of $1,000 and a spouse in a shared grave $600 instead of $500. The selectmen amended the schedule to keep a dependent child's cremation interment at the current $350 rather than raise it to $425. The committee's memo asks for the new fees to start Jan. 1, 2027; the selectmen's motion did not name a start date.

Highway Superintendent Tom Ferry, speaking for the committee, told the board the fees buy the right to burial in a lot, not the opening of the grave, which is billed separately. Most of the money goes into the town's perpetual care fund, he said, where only the interest can be spent on upkeep.

The Sewer Commissioners, an independent board, voted Sept. 14 to raise the residential inspection fee from $125 to $200 and the commercial and industrial inspection fee from $200 to $400, and to raise a drain layer's annual permit from $150 to $200 while dropping the renewal fee. The selectmen acknowledged those fees without a vote.

Snow plow rates

The board also approved Ferry's hourly rates for private plow contractors for the season that runs from November into the third week of April, with a four-hour minimum. A light duty truck goes from $110 to $120 an hour, a six-wheel medium duty truck from $115 to $140, a six-wheel heavy duty truck from $135 to $145 and a loader with a 3-yard bucket from $140 to $150. A pickup with a plow is paid $105. Ferry said fuel drives most of the jump for the medium duty truck, the size the town most wants to hire.

Casual drivers who drive the town's own plow trucks go from $29 to $31 an hour. Contractors whose paperwork is in before noon Thursday, Nov. 19, get a $5 an hour bonus.

What happens next

The health permit increases stay tabled while the Board of Health puts together its comparison of costs and fees. SC360 previewed the hearing on Wednesday: Dighton selectmen weigh $30 trash bag rolls and higher health permit and burial fees Wednesday. For what other South Coast towns charge, see What trash costs town by town.

Residents can send comments to the selectmen at boardofselectmen@dighton-ma.gov. Questions about trash bags go to the Board of Health at 774-872-0943. The meeting video is on the town's YouTube channel.

Label: Reported by us, from the town's posted records.