Town might hike garbage bag fees

The town of Onalaska is faced with a communication problem.

“A big one,” said Town Chairman Dave Paudler.

The previous board removed postage from the budget, leaving the current board with few avenues to get the word out about issues that affect residents. Take, for example, the upcoming July 15 recycling committee meeting where members will discuss the possibility of raising fees charged for garbage bags and dealing with the fallout from an ordinance banning burning barrels.

At the meeting board members will look at raising the fee charged for garbage bags above the current $1 per bag. The prospect of raising that fee to $1.50 per bag was tossed around at the last Onalaska Town Board meeting.

The recently adopted state budget calls for significantly higher tipping fees at Wisconsin landfills. That increase will in turn be passed down to taxpayers or consumers, depending on how garbage collection fees are billed in each municipality.

How much more town of Onalaska residents will pay remains to be seen. “They would have to determine what tonnage would go at the higher rate and what would go at the lower rate,” Paudler said.

Officials will need more accurate numbers from Hilltopper Refuse and Recycling as to how much town garbage goes to the landfill and how much is incinerated at the Xcel Energy waste-to-energy plant. Landfilled tonnage costs more that incinerated tonnage, Paudler said.

“We have to make sure (additional fees) cover cost across the scales,” he said. “It has to be fair to everybody. If the town were to not increase the garbage bag fees, it will likely have little choice but use its general fund to offset the cost, which would cost taxpayers in the end.

Given that information, Paudler said, the fee increase —and the current system — is all the more fair. “You’re only paying for what you send to the landfill,” he said.

The recycling committee will also consider having town employees collect used burn barrels at the same time wood chipping is done. The burning barrel ban took effect Jan. 1 and raises two problems: what to do with all those unused and potentially contaminated burning barrels and what to do with all the leaves that can no longer be burned.

Paudler said some residents aren’t able to bring the barrels to the recycling center themselves. There appears to be a consensus among the board and Paudler speculated the proposal will be a recommendation for action by the board.

So far, there have been no complaints about the town’s burning prohibition, but some residents don’t have the means to get their leaves to the recycling center.

Several options are being considered. One is to charge residents individually for leaf pickup by the town. The other, which the recycling committee will take up at the meeting, is having Hilltopper pick up all town leaves.

Hilltopper recently provided the town with a pair of options. One is to have two town employees assist a Hilltopper driver in collecting the leaves, which would cost about $100 per hour. The other is to have Hilltopper do all of it, which would cost more.

Paudler said the town needs to determine how much work can get done per hour before committing to either proposal.

As to the communication problem, Paudler said residents might want to keep checking the town Web site for updates until a new budget is passed. The town might take out a newspaper ad for burn barrel pickup, he said.

“We have got to get (postage) back in (the budget) somehow, and we’ve got to deal with all of the other shortfalls we’re running into,” he said.

Another shortfall and an inherited challenge, Paulder noted, was how to pay for 200 tons of salt that will be arriving in November given that the previous board spent the 2009 salt budget in January.

“How are we going to pay for it?” Paudler said. “We just don’t have the money.”