I anticipate a garbage discussion on Monday night --our next budget meeting... This afternoon I am thinking garbage. I know we had a discussion on this before.. but I have some new numbers and want to focus it down a bit more... Trying to do my research, look at numbers, explore impetus for staff report on bag tags, examine other municipal practices. I know we have had a garbage discussion already... lets make this one focused. And again this is just my interpretation (not councils, not the Municipalities --my interpretation). Why discuss garbage? Response: Like many other municipal services the Municipality is being urged to make services user pay. By Who? provincial government, best practices, engineering reports, some taxpayers who do not want to subsidize other users. According to my research we are the only Municipality that does not have a user pay system. A bit of semantics here: We have always paid for garbage through our taxes. So the question becomes: Do we want to implement a user pay system or cost recovery for garbage? How do we do that? The options as I see them. Option #1: keep status quo and subsidize garbage through taxes and possible expense decreases (operating costs decrease --how? not sure on that one? ---maybe look at once every two weeks for collection - is that possible? ) Option #2: semi-user pay system by getting rid of allotment of bag tags -- all tags are bought. The numbers behind this: Waste management (garbage) according to last year figures costs $1,533,00.00 - revenue was $476,500. So to make that bit more simpler ---we run a deficit of about $1,000,000.00 per year that has to be made up somewhere ---that is our taxes, transfer payments, etc. By getting rid of allotment of bag tags we increase our revenue or decrease expenses. The projected revenue for 2015 (according to latest budget figures) then becomes: Revenue ($480,200) - Expenses ($1,366,395.00) = deficit of $ 886,195.00 From a user pay perspective the deficit is better but still not user pay---that is why I call it a semi-user pay system. One would think there would have to be ways to also increase revenue and decrease expenses to reflect a true user pay system. What would that look like? Option #3 - Keep allotment of bag tags and increase taxes for further cost recovery. If we kept bag tags could we not shift the cost of these tags to taxes ---we do a portion already. Would you rather have bag tags or increases in taxes? Why would someone be reluctant to do this? Probably because this type of policy or financial mandate cannot be guaranteed from council to council or even year to year. We could say we would increase taxes 2% per year for the next so many years just to address garbage deficit --but it comes down to the will and decisions of council at that given day. Option #4 - Get rid of bag tags completely (physically) and just have a maximum number of bags you can dispose of per week But some will argue that if garbage collection was paid for in taxes --no bag tags --that this in itself would discourage recycling... just put anything in there... with for example a 1 or 2 bag limit per household. Covering garbage in taxes would be unappealing for seasonal residents as well. For many including low garbage households an user pay system is appealing. You pay for the garbage you collect and dispose of... what better way to encourage recycling, consumer habits and composting, etc. You are not left subsidizing your neighbour who gets rid of five bags per week. But just a many do no want to get rid of bag tags. I need some help on this one... what is the fundamental question here? what is the desired goal and direction? And we do need to be careful of how we phrase our debate ----I was talking to a gentleman the other day while picking up prescriptions.. He said to me: I want bag tags. Do not get rid of bag tags. I asked why: He said everyone should pay for what they throw away. So he was actually arguing that bag tags are a good thing but that every tag should be paid for which is different from what I first thought he was saying: which was keep the allotted bag tags. Try to respond with the parameters I outline above... thanks for listening.
Posted on: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 20:28:44 +0000
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