County should show some faith in effort to expand recycling

opinions

December 3, 2015 - 12:00 AM

Sometimes it’s hard to loosen the purse strings if you’re gripped in fear of tomorrow.
Allen County commissioners have been asked to divert a total of $200,000 from a $1.1 million pot to the Allen County Community Foundation.
The transfer would trigger an immediate 25-50 percent match by the Kansas Health Foundation that would go to the local community foundation to help build its endowment. From there, the foundation would use the proceeds on the interest accrued to fund community projects that had a focus on health or the environment.
If the purpose were health-related, it would generate a 50 percent match; environmental, 25 percent.
Because the request targets money sitting in a fund for the county’s landfill, the lower figure is more likely.
Proponents for the transfer suggested the money could be used to enhance a successful paper recycling project managed by the local Rotary club. Not only does the program keep newspaper and magazine waste from filling up the landfill prematurely, but some of it is turned into a slurry that the landfill uses to cover the layers of waste as they are deposited. Surely a win-win.
Rotarians envision expanding the recycling program. Because it can be so easily repurposed and is in high demand, aluminum makes the most sense.

COMMISSIONERS, however, are having a hard time letting go of the funds, even though representatives of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment say they are no longer needed to ensure the landfill’s future.
Under the leadership of Bill King, former director of Public Works, the landfill is on solid ground and its current cell has 13 years before another one needs digging.
In that amount of time, the $250,000 gift could earn $130,000 at a 4 percent interest rate if invested with the community foundation. Meanwhile, the county’s fund is currently earning 1.7 percent interest, or an expected $44,000 for 13 years on that requested $200,000.
And remember, the proceeds would be used to help the county landfill by keeping additional waste from filling it faster.

THE FEAR that dipping into $1.1 million  fund  by $200,000 would somehow prevent the county from being able to address some unforeseen “disaster” is just that, fear, with no basis in reality.
It’s better to think in positive terms about what the request could do, not what keeping it back might prevent.
That’s believing in our potential.
— Susan Lynn

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