SWAB minutes 090309 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Minutes - Regular Meeting Solid Waste Advisory Board September 3 , 2009 Approved November 5, 2009 In November the Work Group considered financing of the convenience centers . There was interest in financing bulky items and other non-bagged wastes with a fee . The RRS report showed how we could finance the whole system with fees . Gaston County uses a punchcard system for bagged waste and bulky wastes . It is challenging to handle a punchcard type system on very busy times at the convenience centers . Our way of handling bulky items now is not efficient. We may get fewer items if we charge, as free goods are ' abused' more . We could continue to do the tax base and add some fees . We are reaching a point where taxes alone cannot finance the SWCCs . We could also look at the model that says every household in the unincorporated area could be levied a flat fee as a condition of using the facility and everyone else could buy in that wanted to use the facility as they do in Chatham and Durham . Sassaman asks for a review of how they are funded now . Pollock states that using a round number over 90 % of the funding for the convenience center operation, which is $1 . 8 million, is from the general fund . This means that every private property owner, regardless of jurisdiction or type, pays for it, but non- residential entities are excluded from using it [SWCCs] and residential in the urban area have garbage service they pay for with their Town taxes . The other less than 10 % [of funding for operating SWCCs] is because we have recycling services there that are covered through the portion of the 3 -R fee . Sassaman asks what we are talking about in terms in incremental costs if it came from taxes . Is there a significant increase ? Wilson states that if you are talking about how much more given improving the sites added to what we are already paying I' m not sure . The modernization cost to separate service vehicles from the citizen/ customers, to have more concrete so the sites are easier to clean, so they are arranged to add additional recycling and waste reduction services / programs to eliminate the front loading dumpsters, and switch to compactor and pre crushers for bulky items, per site it would be approximately $ 7500, 000 - $800, 000 range multiplied by four sites . There will not be that much cash to do it so most of that would be debt financed . The actual finance payment would be more in the range of $300, 000 - $400, 000 / year . What makes it complicated is in order to not make the sites quite so large and have so much capacity is one of the reasons we are talking about a franchise to try and shift some of the massive quantity of users from convenience centers to curbside so they only come [to SWCCs] occasionally . It is not a significant amount if combined with ity to reduce the intensity of the use . some curbside opportun Sassaman states that I would hate to see any disincentive for recycling and would like to see all the incentives for recycling and disincentivize throwing stuff away . 10