In just a few months, Falls Church leaders are hoping to reach a final decision on whether to shift how they fund city trash collection.

City Council members on Monday directed City Manager Wyatt Shields to set up a task force on the issue and come back to Council members by Aug. 4 with recommendations.

The task force “won’t have those official trappings of a Council board — the reason for that is to get it moving as quickly as possible,” the city manager said at the work session .

“We’re right now actively soliciting people who can serve on this staff force with staff,” he said.

To implement changes this year, city leaders would need to reach a decision by September.

“We look forward to those recommendations,” Mayor Letty Hardi said.

Currently, the city funds trash collection for single-family neighborhoods. It includes the costs in its General Fund budget and pays for them through tax revenue.

That arrangement means that people living in other types of housing, and those owning commercial properties, are paying for trash collection even though they don’t receive the service from the city.

The proposal under consideration would cut the overall real-estate tax rate by up to 1.5 cents per $100 but charge residential property owners approximately $300 per year for trash service.

If this happens, owners of commercial, retail and apartment properties would see a net reduction in costs, as would those living in condominiums and those in the city’s most expensive single-family homes. Most single-family homeowners, however, would likely see an increase.

The proposal has been under consideration since last fall.

Because tax bills are mailed out in the fall and are due Dec. 5, the deadline for making the change would have to be no later than September.

The directive from the Council gives Shields some latitude in selecting members of the task force, but mandates that several homeowners be included. City Treasurer Jody Acosta, whose office most likely would be responsible for implementing billing for the cost as part of property tax bills, would be among the participants.

City staff also plan to check with Fairfax Water, which provides billing services for water and sewer in the city, to see if the trash-collection charge could be billed via those quarterly bills instead of through property-tax bills.

Leaders also directed Shields to consider a multi-tier charge that would vary depending on how much trash and recycling a property generates, and whether there could be subsidies for seniors and people with disabilities.

The task force won’t study incorporating condominium associations into the city’s trash-collection network. This is because of disinterest from associations that the city has contacted and the complexities of adding them in.

City Council member David Snyder voiced support for including a discussion of condominiums in the task force’s work, but found no other Council members supporting him.

Snyder also asked for consideration of the financial impacts on homeowners who would see trash-collection bills higher than tax-bill savings, and sought a “hold harmless” provision for at least the first year of any change.

“It’s very important that their voices be heard,” he said of homeowners whose costs would go up due to a switch.

Shields replied it would be both financially and administratively “difficult” to implement such a hold-harmless provision, but staff added it to the list of topics for consideration.

Across Northern Virginia, some jurisdictions that provide municipal trash collection services pay for it through general taxes, while others, including Arlington , directly charge property owners receiving the service.