Countywide garbage rates have been a moving target in recent years, much to the dismay of a public that has viewed a series of recent fee hikes as arbitrary or, worse, unjustified.

The county's adoption of a methodology for rate adjustments may not change the financial realities faced by the local waste collection industry - volatile gas prices, the shrinking demand for recyclable materials and a population spread thin into remote areas - but it should make the process more transparent, said county officials and waste haulers who spent more than two years developing the adjustment model.

It was back in November 2006 that ACES Waste Services Inc. asked for and received an increase in rates for some of its customers. In the past three years, the local waste hauling company, which serves Amador, San Joaquin and Sacramento counties, has managed to raise rates for certain customer segments in Amador a total of four times, including two separate increases this year. The last fee hike was approved by the board of supervisors in September, and raised rates for 4,500 upcountry residents 10 percent. Sharp increases in operational costs and gas prices were the dual culprits then. Oil prices have since plummeted to below $50 a barrel, but ACES and its competitor, Amador Disposal Service, are still struggling to hold on.

That's because the demand for recyclable materials has plummeted and the dismal economy has resulted in haulers losing some of their commercial contracts, said ACES owner Paul Molinelli Sr. Meanwhile, the state is mandating that waste companies comply with air quality targets that require fleet upgrades or, in some cases, replacement, as well as recycling standards that don't ease if the demand for such materials drops.

At the board of supervisors meeting Tuesday, there was a glimmer of hope that, if gas prices continued to fall or remain low, a rate adjustment lowering fees may at some point be possible. But it wasn't spoken of as a probability.

Public Works Director Larry Peterson said it was ACES' November 2006 rate increase that started the county "on a bit of a journey" to determine what made for reasonable rate requests. After several months of meetings by an ad hoc committee and consultations with other municipalities, public works staff, waste haulers and consultants fashioned a "hybrid" rate adjustment methodology, or RAM, to make the process more predictable.

According to a memorandum describing the methodology, the plan is to judge rate adjustments using a four-year rubric. A detailed, cost-based review is performed in the first year of the process. In essence, the waste haulers open up their books to the county, which would be partly responsible for determining reasonable profit targets, request deadlines and a timeline for responding. Non-allowable expenses would include fines, income taxes, charitable or political contributions and other expenses not considered in the RAM. There are also a number of limitations on allowable expenses, like officer salaries and caps on corporate overhead costs.

The following three years of the process would be index-based, with the county factoring in several indices - labor, diesel fuel, vehicle replacement and vehicle maintenance, among them - and measuring these variables against the Consumer Price Index.

A detailed rate review was something the county would perform every time a rate adjustment was requested, said solid waste program manager Jim McHargue. "This hybrid approach ... will save the county significant money."

Asked about the drop in oil prices, Peterson and County Counsel Martha Shaver explained a rate adjustment could be implemented as a surcharge that would be terminated once it met its target. Both the county and the waste companies can request rate adjustments.

"Part of this is to get away from single topic rate adjustment requests," Peterson said.

Molinelli expressed satisfaction with the new methodology. He also downplayed the notion that the drop in gas prices would mean lower garbage rates for Amador customers, an argument supervisors corroborated.

"In essence, we were playing catch-up a little bit," board Chairman Richard Forster said of September's rate hikes, which were approved months after ACES and Amador Disposal began paying significantly more for diesel.

"As it relates to fuel, some people forget - and I've been getting this everywhere I go ... but people forget we are recovering what we've incurred," Molinelli told supervisors. Despite raising commercial rates, revenues were down on that end as well, Molinelli added, and Peterson confirmed District 5 Supervisor Brian Oneto's speculation that there is currently no market for recyclable materials garbage collectors are required to process.

"One (local recycling center) has stopped taking newspapers of all things," Peterson said.