By LeAnn R. Ralph
MENOMONIE — Dunn County’s solid waste and recycling collection sites, including Colfax, Elk Mound and Boyceville, could soon be closed on Wednesdays to help deal with the program’s 2020 budget deficit.
The Dunn County Solid Waste and Recycling Board held a special meeting April 28 to discuss options for this year’s projected budget deficit.
The meeting was held by teleconference to maintain social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Each of the four options presented by Morgan Gerk, director of Dunn County Solid Waste and Recycling, contained a range of deficit amounts, from about $156,000 to a deficit of about $390,000.
Option 1, which would generate a deficit of $156,000, included operating the transfer station west of Menomonie on state Highway 29 only and closing all of the other collection sites in the county.
Option 2, which would generate a deficit of about $200,000, included operating the transfer station, with public drop-off on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, and keeping the Colfax, Elk Mound and Boyceville collection sites open on Wednesdays and Saturdays while closing all of the other satellite sites.
Option 3, which would generate a deficit of around $360,000, included operating the transfer station, with public drop-off on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, and with all collection sites open Saturday only. The collection sites are Colfax, Elk Mound, Boyceville, Connorsville, Ridgeland, Downsville and Rock Creek.
The third option would be the most labor intensive because 24 people would be needed to work on Saturdays, Gerk noted.
Option 4, which would generate a deficit of around $390,000, included operating the transfer station, with public drop-off hours Monday through Thursday and Saturday, and all collection sites open only on Saturday.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic and difficulty obtaining enough workers, the Connorsville, Ridgeland, Downsville and Rock Creek Area Collection Stations are now closed until further notice.
The Transfer Station and Recycling Center, along with the Boyceville, Colfax and Elk Mound Area Collection Stations, are now open for extended hours with the transfer station open for public drop-off Mondays and Tuesdays from 6 a.m. to noon, Wednesdays and Thursdays 1 p.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturdays 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., while Colfax, Elk Mound and Boyceville are open Wednesdays 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturdays 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Adjustments
Certain areas of the budget could be adjusted to offset the budget deficits associated with each of the options, Gerk said.
For example, $95,000 is budgeted in 2020 for Clean Sweep, but the Clean Sweep hazardous waste collection could be eliminated, and $70,000 could be put toward the deficit. The remaining $25,000 would have to be used to dispose of materials that have already been collected at the transfer station, Gerk said.
Clean Sweep is a free program for county residents subsidized partially by a grant.
Implementing a fee for each of the different materials that are collected during Clean Sweep, such as paint, would be difficult because each vehicle would have to be assessed separately, leading to long lines and long wait times, said Gerk, and Megen Hines, recycling specialist.
A set user-based fee could be assessed to every vehicle, such as $10 per car, but there were 401 participants in the 2019 Clean Sweep, and that would only generate $4,000, and disposal costs for Clean Sweep are more like $40,000, Hines said.
In addition, Gerk said Dunn County employees are not qualified to determine what is hazardous.
“That’s why we hire (a company) to do it,” he said.
The 2020 budget also includes $50,000 for the yard waste program. The money is earmarked for grinding and hauling yard waste from the collection sites, but the hauling could be eliminated and part of the money put toward the deficit, he said.
Gerk noted he would prefer not to eliminate the grinding and
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hauling of yard waste because if it is put off until next year, it would still have to be paid for next year, and another budget deficit is anticipated in 2021.
If grinding yard waste was eliminated, $15,000 could be put toward the deficit, Gerk said.
Some of the $43,000 in the maintenance budget could perhaps be used, too, he said.
While the transfer station is 30 years old and “falling apart,” if there are no big repairs needed, a portion of the $43,000 maintenance budget could be put toward operations, Gerk said.
Yet another option would be for Dunn County to share the position of recycling specialist with Eau Claire County, and Eau Claire would be happy to have her half-time, Gerk said.
If sharing the recycling specialist 50-50 with Eau Claire County were implemented in June, that would amount to $23,448 that could be applied elsewhere in the budget. For a full year, that would amount to $39,332, he said.
While sharing the recycling specialist with Eau Claire County would save money, the downside is that Dunn County would only have a recycling specialist working half time, and there is more than enough work to keep the recycling specialist working full time, Gerk noted.
Payback
The solid waste and recycling board will be making a recommendation to the Dunn County Board about loaning money to the 2020 program and making a budget adjustment, and the money will have to be paid back to the county in 2021, said Paul Miller, county manager.
In years past, the Dunn County Board has made up budget deficits by taking the shortfall out of the county’s general fund balance.
The fund balance cannot be used to cover the solid waste and recycling deficit. The last two budgets have been balanced by using the fund balance, and Dunn County must protect the county’s credit rating, said Keith Strey, chief financial officer for Dunn County.
All units of government will be facing financial challenges because of COVID-19, and Dunn County is expected to experience a loss in sales tax revenue of $300,000 to $600,000, and the loss may have to come out of the fund balance, he said.
Dunn County also must keep a certain amount of reserve cash in case of a drug epidemic or a natural disaster, Strey said.
Two years ago, the Dunn County Department of Human Services had a $1 million budget deficit, largely because of the opioid crisis. County residents required drug treatment, and their children were removed from their homes and cared for elsewhere.
If Dunn County loans money to the solid waste and recycling program, the money will be paid back by an increased per capita fee in 2021 of $4 or $5 for a smaller loan and $14 or $15 for a larger loan.
Dunn County Solid Waste and Recycling is a business, and expenses must be passed on to county residents, Gerk said.
Recycling revenue
Part of the problem for the solid waste and recycling 2020 budget is that revenue from the sale of recyclable materials has decreased drastically.
“The markets are compromised,” Gerk said.
The price for metal is down to $10 to $15 per ton, and in some instances, municipalities are paying to have their metal picked up, he said.
Because oil prices have dropped so low — due to decreased travel during the coronavirus pandemic and also due to price wars among oil producers, such as Saudi Arabia and Russia — the prices also are bad for recyclable plastics, Gerk said.
In addition, because of the Safer at Home order that went into effect March 25, the collection stations are receiving an increased volume of trash, recyclables and yard waste, he said.
Since many people have either been laid off from their jobs or are working from home, they have had more time to clean and work in their yards, Gerk said.
Local units of government have been asking the federal government for compensation for lost revenue because of COVID-19, but there is “no appetite” at the federal level to compensate for lost revenue, Miller said.
The idea of providing subsidies to local government “is meeting resistance on the federal level,” Strey said.
Options
The last option of closing the satellite sites, including Colfax, Elk Mound and Boyceville, on Wednesdays seems like the best option, said Dave Bartlett, county board supervisor from Boyceville and chair of the Dunn County Board.
People who live in the northern part of the county would have a 50-minute drive to get to the transfer station west of Menomonie if that was the only option, he said.
Part of the risk of a $390,000 budget adjustment that must be paid back next year is that the municipalities are under no obligation to remain in the program, Miller said.
The Dunn County Solid Waste and Recycling Board voted unanimously to recommend a budget adjustment of $390,000 to be borrowed from the county’s general fund, which would be expected to be paid back next year by an increase of about $15 in the per capita fee paid by municipalities, for operating the transfer station, including public drop-off hours, and with all collection sites open only on Saturdays.
The recommendation will now go to the Dunn County Planning, Resources and Development Committee for consideration. If the PR&D committee approves the recommendation, it will be forwarded to the executive committee for consideration, and if the executive committee approves the recommendation, it could be on the agenda for the Dunn County Board’s May 20 meeting.
The Dunn County Solid Waste and Recycling Board meets again May 12, and part of the agenda will include discussing the 2021 budget.
Some municipalities in Dunn County place the solid waste and recycling fee on the property tax levy, which reduces the amount of money available to pay for roads and other expenses, while other municipalities invoice the solid waste and recycling fees directly to their residents.
