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Changing landfill hours may be only the first effort to increase revenue for the R-Board Date published: 8/20/2010
BY JONAS BEALS In January, the Rappahannock Regional Solid Waste Management Board reduced the weekend hours of its landfill off Eskimo Hill Road in Stafford County. This week, R-Board member and Stafford Supervisor Paul Milde said he would ask to have at least some of those weekend hours reinstated. At this point it appears cutting hours might not save enough money to allow the R-Board to meet its financial goals. If the economy does not improve soon, the joint Stafford-Fredericksburg authority may have to find other ways to create revenue, including charging fees to local users. "We changed the hours, but not just for the obvious reason that we would save money," Milde said. The R-Board saves money on fuel, equipment and employees with each hour the landfill is closed. Milde said the point of the change in hours was not necessarily to reduce expenditures, but to increase revenue. Because of the recession, the R-Board's revenue has been declining. Stafford residents seem to be dropping their commercial trash pick-up companies in favor of hauling their own garbage to the dump. Problem is, the landfill's residential drop-off site and its associated Fredericksburg site on Belman Road are free to Stafford and Fredericksburg residents. The R-Board profits only when commercial haulers, including those commercial trash pickup companies, unload their trucks. Milde said cutting the hours of operation was an attempt to encourage Stafford residents to go back to their commercial pickup services. Traffic has also become a concern on weekends as more residents flock to the landfill in a smaller window of time. It is not uncommon for vehicles to line up on Eskimo Hill Road before the landfill opens on Saturday and Sunday. The landfill is currently open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. On weekends, it opens later and closes earlier than it did in 2009. Cutting five hours from the weekend schedule was a unanimous decision of the R-Board. "We were willing to give this plan a shot," Milde said. "But I never really liked the idea. The landfill should be more convenient."
In addition to hauler fees. Those aren't enough, and now they're talking about resident user fees-which is a bad idea, IMO. What they need to do is increase the tax dollars, increase the hauler fees, or both. Resident user fees will only result in illegal dumping, burning more littering, etc.
I didn't know until recently that the landfill was funded by hauler fees and not tax dollars. How is it handled in other counties (Spotsy, etc.)? Maybe use tax dollars in addition to fees? I'm not a huge fan of raising taxes, but everyone in the county uses the landfill in one way or another. Just a thought.
That it won't solve the R-board's financial woes either. If residents are charged user fees at the landfill, many will dispose of waste in other "creative" ways such as illegal dumping, burning, etc. Cutting hours was never a great solution, so I'm not surprised that they want to reverse the hour cuts. They'll either need to get more money from Fredericksburg and Stafford, raise commercial fees, or both.
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