News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The Van Buren County Budget Committee approved a five cents per pound charge on commercial haulers to take waste into the county.
The Wednesday action, according to Mayor Greg Wilson would help generate $75,000.
“We have one of our haulers that is taking on some over in Bledsoe County and it’s going to come to us,” Wilson said. “That’s our problem, we’ve got a couple of the haulers that are going outside the county and bringing it here and it saves them money and we just can’t, we cannot go on that way.”
One committee member said that either the solid waste department will get supplemented by charging or will save money by not having to haul it to the landfill. Van Buren County is trying to shore up its revenue picture around solid waste.
Committee Chairman William Maxwell said the county has to continue to take action.
“At the end of the day, we’re not breaking even in solid waste,” Maxwell said. “We’ve got to do something.”
The need to find ways to increase revenues is being pressed by rising fuel costs. Maxwell said that the county has three options right now to try and solve the solid waste department’s issues.
“We can’t continue to function as we are unless we want to flow property tax back into it again,” Maxwell said. “We can change the rate structure and go back to charging by the pound, we can increase what we’re charging on the utility bill now or we can funnel more property tax into it. None of the three of them are good options, but something’s got to happen.”
The new change will go from the committee to the full commission for a vote of approval. If this change is approved, it would go into effect in June.
