The possibility of implementing franchise and license fees for non-City entities that haul trash within City limits was an area of discussion for City Commissioners during their Tuesday evening (February 21) meeting.

City Manager Allen Dinkel explained that franchise fees are paid by the Company providing the service and then reimbursed by those citizens that utilize the service.

“When you have a company that makes money, i.e. Westar for example, they pay their stockholders – when our trash service makes a profit, we pay our stockholders by transferring to the General Fund; so that’s $170,000 we just doubled a couple of years ago that we don’t put upon the taxpayers, we use profits from an Enterprise Fund,” said Dinkel.

City officials estimated that 70% of residential customers in Junction City utilize trash services while less than 20% of commercial customers utilize the City trash pick-up.

Mick McCallister, City Commissioner, wanted to know if any research was available regarding other cities in the region and state.

“I talked to Salina, and asked them what their franchise fee was – they don’t have one – Abilene doesn’t have one, they have a license fee and a per truck charge,” said McCallister. “When I talked to the City Clerk, I was under the impression that Salina had theirs (trash service), but they also had several private entities that did both commercial and residential (trash hauling); they charge an annual licensing fee and a charge per truck.”

Dinkel noted that there are several options available to Commissioners.

“There are some cities where [trash hauling] is exclusive to the city, to cities where it’s exclusive to a given company; I know of cities that do not operate the trash, but they charge for it, they get a 2% or 3% fee that goes with your water bill, but it’s all done by a firm and then the city gets a billing fee because they collect the money and then they give a check to the trash hauling company,” said Dinkel.

Commissioners have also been working to increase recycling in the City.

“I think if we really did want to get into recycling, it would behoove us to have one trash system…going to a single trash service and eliminating from three down to one is going to take basically a two year period,” said Dinkel.

Commissioners requested more research and analysis before bringing taking any action.

McCallister said, “[we should not] rebuild a wheel that’s already been built.”