Trash service or everything else?

October 17, 2012

Trash service or everything else?

Anonymous The Goshen News Wed Oct 17, 2012, 09:21 AM EDT

In the Saturday Goshen News, I read about the cuts to the city budget proposed by Councilman Tom Stump in order to be able to pay for residential trash collection out of the general city budget.

While I am not clear on where all the cuts come from, the large majority seem to come park and recreation. One rationales for these cuts is that the city should first make paying for services that all the residents use out of the general budget a priority before funding items that some or a few residents use.

While there is a certain logic to this, in practice we pick and choose which services are covered under the general tax revenue and which we are charged for if we live in Goshen. Street maintenance, leaf and brush pick-up are covered under general revenue, while water and sewer are not.

There is a certain logic to this as well. While it would be hard to measure usage for streets and brush and leaf disposal and assign fees it is possible to measure how much water/sewer we use or indeed how much trash we each set out. You could argue that trash fee is even fairer since businesses who contribute to the general fund through their property taxes subsidize residential trash collection while having to pay privately for theirs.

We asked for this when we voted for property tax caps that are now in effect in Indiana. Imagine a brochure for Goshen touting some of the best schools in the state, parks and trails throughout the city for all to use, a great library, vibrant downtown and events that attract a cross-section of our residents and surrounding comminutes. Now imagine a brochure that states we offer free trash collection. You choose.

— Dana Miller

Goshen

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