With fewer communities receiving recycling grants, the state Department of Natural Resources would be able to better audit local recycling programs, thus ensuring their performance, Decker said. Gard and other Republicans say raising the state recycling tipping fee amounts to a tax increase and that local recycling programs would be more efficient and achieve better results if more local tax money paid for them. But it's a lot easier to scare people into a tax increase than it is to convince them that money is being wasted. Menomonee Falls Village President Joe Greco, head of the League of Wisconsin Municipalities, said if state recycling funding to communities is reduced, municipalities will have to either raise local taxes or scale back recycling services. You can't continue to put the decline of state aid on the backs of local taxpayers.
Recycling is a state mandate.
We can't raise taxes to maintain the status quo. Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on May 1, 2001. Journal Sentinel Inc. All rights reserved.