Dive Summary:

• The state budget, recently signed by Governor Scott Walker, prohibits the city of Superior, Wis. from raising fees without cutting the same amount on its annual levy tax, thereby eliminating any possibility of charging residents a fee for waste services.
• A waste management expert advised the council to finance the landfill by privatizing both the landfill and the waste services or recommended the city just let the deficit increase.
• The city would have to cut $1 million from police, fire and public works in order to implement a collection fee.

From the article:

Almost 65 percent of the cost to operate the landfill is paid through the city's contract with Western Lake Superior Sanitary District, a contract that runs to 2019.

With WLSSD facing a $13 per ton tipping fee imposed by the state of Wisconsin and less costly alternatives in Minnesota, Hagen said he believes the contract will end when it expires, leaving the city with a loss in revenue of almost $3.5 million...

While rural trash haulers contribute about $721,000 annually to the revenue stream for the landfill, WLSSD is the only outside contract the city has for landfilling services.