by James A. Bacon
I’m sick and tired of the false choice between raising taxes and cutting services. There are many ways that enterprising localities can save money and/or generate non-tax revenue without hosing taxpayers or neglecting core responsibilities. Here are just two ideas that popped up recently.
Street lights. Every municipality in Virginia operates street lights at a collective cost of tens of millions of dollars per year. (At one point the City of Los Angeles was spending $42 million annually to monitor and maintain its 200,000 street lights.) Light pollution issues aside, street lights run up the electric bill and generate costs to monitor and replace the light bulbs. You can’t bring along a step ladder and stand on your tippy-toes — you have to use a cherry picker to replace a burned out bulb.
The good news is that there are new technologies — cost-effective LED lights and sensors that detect when no one is around and no light is needed — that can drive down the cost of lighting up the outdoors. The bad news is that buying the bulbs and installing the sensors requires an up-front capital investment that local governments often cannot afford.
One possible solution: a public-private partnership. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) recently contracted with Philips Electronics, a private company, to light all of its parking garages. The authority estimates it will save $2 million annually in operating expenses while maintaining a contracted-for quality of service, reports Greater Greater Washington.
If WMATA can save money, so can every Virginia locality. This is low hanging fruit. There is no friggin’ excuse for local governments not to save this money. If your local government isn’t exploring these savings, it’s time to tar and feather your city council or county board.
Landfill mining. Virginia localities have been operating landfills for decades. A few have figured out how to generate cash by tapping the methane emanating from these facilities. As metal prices have risen, the same municipal dumps also may be sitting on a small fortune in copper, aluminum and other processed minerals. In the Jefferson Policy Journal, Rob Hartwell describes how localities can turn their landfills into windfalls.
“eWaste” is the fastest growing municipal waste stream in the U.S., with thousands of computers, peripherals, printers, fax machines, televisions and mobile devices discarded each day. Twenty-five states “restrict eWaste from being dumped into landfills. Virginia is not one of them. Local governments could be monetizing this waste stream and capturing millions in revenues. Writes Hartwell:
One combined effort underway in Southeast Virginia, the Hampton Roads Urban Mining Center, would start with eCycling and move to produce fuels from municipal waste. Utilizing the latest in European technologies just now available in the U.S., the benefits from similar regional efforts across Virginia per site would be monumental, including:
Nearly $500 million worth of private sector investment.
Over 500 new direct jobs with $25/hour average wage, not counting 500 construction jobs and new transportation/hauling-related jobs.
Tax revenue streams on over $200 million annual revenue (after 3 years).
Local governments should be stumbling over themselves to strike similar deals.