MIDDLETOWN — Residents have from now until Nov. 1 to pay a new $50 user fee for the town’s pay-as-you-throw trash program.

The Town Council instituted the annual user fee for residents who use the town’s curbside trash-pickup program to boost revenue. To offset the new fee, the council also dropped the costs of the program’s trash bags to $1.75 for the 15-gallon size and $2 for the 33-gallon bags, to try to boost participation.

While the municipal trash program has run smoothly and boosted recycling rates — Middletown ranked first in the state for recycling for the last fiscal year, it has faced some financial troubles. Officials have said that the program’s estimated $484,000 shortfall should be closed after collecting the user fees and allocating capital improvement and general fund dollars.

The average household, which uses two of the larger trash bags weekly, will now pay about $310 annually to use the municipal trash service, about $100 less than what households pay for private trash haulers, officials have said.

Not only will the new user fee provide additional revenue, it will also give the town a better sense of just how many households are participating in the program, a figure that until now has been difficult for Middletown to gauge.

The community mailed a fee application form to each household with the August tax bills. Residents are asked to return the form and the $50 user fee by no later than Nov. 1. Forms can also be completed online at the town’s Web site, www.middletownri.com, or can be picked up at the Public Works Department on Berkeley Avenue, Mondays through Fridays, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The town will then provide each household with stickers to affix to their trash cart and their recycling bins.

The new bag prices go into effect Sept. 1. Residents who do not purchase the stickers by Nov. 1 risk having their garbage not collected.

About 80 households have already paid for their stickers, said Will Cronin, the town’s recycling coordinator.

The town included a voluntary survey with its sticker application to learn more about how residents use the service and how they’d like to see the program improved. Cronin said the responses have been a “mixed bag,” with some saying they’d like to see smaller-sized trash bags and carts and others saying they aren’t pleased with the new user fee.

“But with the reduction of the bag cost, for the most part, it’s not going to be much of an added expense,” Cronin said. “Some folks are going to be saving money. Those that use two or three bags a week will be breaking even.”

The town decided to move to the automated, curbside-pickup program last November to handle the town’s waste once Middletown’s lease expired on the Navy-owned Burma Road transfer station site.

Cronin said the town’s recycling rate of more than 40 percent is a testament to the program’s success.

“It just says something about the residents and the way they’ve embraced the program,” he said. “Folks may not have liked it right out of the gate, but we won them over with the convenience of it. The program’s not perfect, but it’s really great.”

mwims@projo.com