FULTON COUNTY — Local municipalities will be paying more to dump trash at the county landfill thanks to a vote by the county Board of Supervisors.

The board voted Monday to increase the municipal direct haul rate $2 from $27 to $29 per ton and increase the commercial hauler rate from $48 to $50 per ton. Johnstown 4th Ward Supervisor James Callery opposed the increase. He said the rates should go up for commercial haulers, not county taxpayers.

“The taxpayers of Fulton County built that landfill. If anybody should be given consideration for [lower tipping fees] it should be them first,” Callery said. “I say you put it on your private carriers, your outside users, because there is no other municipality that can use our landfill for what we charge. I think they should bear a larger brunt than we do and I say that knowing they pay more per ton than we do.”

County Solid Waste Department Director Jeffrey Bouchard, who compiled the tipping fee increase proposals, said he tried to use an incremental approach to increasing tipping fees gradually to make certain the county has enough money to pay for its obligations to the landfill, which continue on long after it closes and stops receiving income. He defended his tipping fee increase requests.

“Last year we didn’t raise the municipal direct haul rates,” Bouchard said. “I think one of the draws for industrial development in Fulton County has been our low tipping fees. You want to encourage people to come here and develop and our low tipping fees and our 60-year [landfill] site life have been the draw.”

Municipal tipping fees had been decreasing over the last 13 years from $65 in 1995 to $27 in 2008, reflecting the taxpayers paying off the cost of building the landfill.

“The plan at one time was to have zero tipping fees for the taxpayers,” Callery said.

“We could look at that, but then it would be $100 per ton for commercial [tipping fees],” Bouchard said, in an exchange with Callery.

The Board of Supervisors voted to increase the tipping fee per ton of waste for the Saratoga County town of Edinburg from $55 to $65, bringing it in line with other municipalities outside the county, such as Niskayuna, Hadley and the village of Schoharie.

Supervisors Anthony “Chart” Buanno, 4th Ward Gloversville; Gregory Fagan, Perth; and Todd Bradt, Ephratah, all opposed the increase for Edinburg, citing a longstanding “deal” with the neighboring town to maintain the lower rate.

Mayfield Supervisor Alan “Herb” McLain supported the increase.

“Deals can be changed,” he said.