A great question came up on Facebook, so we would like to take a minute to answer. And thanks to the original questioner for asking and being polite.
Q: "This has troubled me for some time. Why do we pay a landfill fee on our monthly water bills and then pay to use the landfill anytime we take our disposal items to the landfill? Neophyte, inquiring minds would like to know."
A: Thanks for the great question! This topic can be a bit complex, so thanks for prompting us to share this information.
The City has four services that are separate from the general fund. These are called “Enterprise Funds” and include landfill, recycling, sewer, and water. These are required by law to be funded by the users and cannot use normal funding sources such as sales tax. Their money must stay separate from all the city’s general funds.
Each enterprise fund must be both self-sustaining and bring in enough money to remain functional. To have these four services, we charge a maintenance fee for our water, sewer, landfill, and recycling. This allows us to have these services in our community.
For the landfill, we have two ways of collecting revenue. We use these both to make it as equitable as possible and still be able to keep our landfill open. The first, the landfill maintenance fee shown on your utility bill is just to have the landfill in our community. The second, the fee at the gate makes it more equitable, as people who haul more pay more.
For example, the landfill brings in a total of about $143,000 monthly from both fees. We bring in about $90,000 per month through the landfill gate charges, so if we lost that funding the charge on the utility bills would need to increase. We bring in about $53,000 per month through the maintenance fee on the utility bill, so if we lost that funding the charge at the gate would need to increase. This would then drive up the cost of construction, trash hauling and other services which depend on our landfill.
By having both revenue sources, we can have a landfill that is both solvent and equitable. For more information or with questions, please contact Mira Miller, City of Rawlins Community Relations Coordinator, at 307-328-4500 ext. 1022.
Photo courtesy of Cali O'Hare/Bigfoot 99.
