Our View: City has to privatize

While city officials haven’t decided if they will privatize the solid waste department, the budget passed last month all but finalizes privatization.

While city rates for solid waste management did increase, those rates were not increased to levels where the city can cover the costs associated with providing equipment needed in the transfer station. Even without those costs, the city’s solid waste rates would only allow the division to operate for roughly a year before the solid waste fund would become insolvent. The Green River City Council finds itself in a position where it has to privatize the department. We don’t see any other possible outcomes for the department.

There are other driving forces involved with the decision; it’s not just budgetary decisions at the city level. A shift to a regional landfill model across the state, as well as additional environmental safety requirements adopted by the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality, has sealed the fate of many municipal landfills, not just in Green River. That isn’t to say the city itself isn’t completely free from accountability in the situation.

The outcome could have been a lot different if the transfer station and landfill closing projects were included in the 2012 sixth penny improvement projects tax.

Unlike the police department, which was separated as a stand-alone item on the ballot, both projects would have been included in the infrastructure portion of the ballot. That portion passed as it included projects from throughout the county.

As hindsight is 20/20, it’s easy to criticize a past governing body for not utilizing a great tool to deal with the landfill closure. It’s a five-year period between the ballot initiative and when the landfill closed, after all. But, failing to prepare for the costs associated with closing the landfill is another problem that pushed the city to this point. The Council could have raised rates during the past 8-10 years, but declined to do so in an attempt to keep city utility rates low for the city’s elder residents.

Hopefully, the city will be able to negotiate a rate structure that benefits residents and we hope the employees within the solid waste division will be absorbed into other divisions or find employment with whatever solid waste company ends up getting the contract. Different choices may have resulted in another outcome, but privatization is the only outcome at the end of the road we’re on.