SUN-GAZETTE FILE PHOTO Workers move garbage at Lycoming County’s landfill.

When you place your trash/garbage in the bin, it all ends up – hopefully – at the landfill located about nine miles south of Williamsport off Route 15. How it gets there is really the impetus for a rate increase for commercial haulers at the transfer station on West Third Street operated by Lycoming County’s Resource Management Services.

“What’s happening is…and I know all the haulers hate when I say this, the taxpayers are supplementing the haulers, because they’re bringing their garbage to the transfer station, and then, as county employees, we’re moving it all over to the landfill on their behalf, which costs us more money than we’re making at the transfer station,” according to Lycoming County Commissioner Marc Sortman.

“It loses money continually. It’s a money drain on the county,” he said.

By raising the rates at the transfer station, the county is hoping that the haulers will take the garbage to the landfill themselves.

“I wouldn’t say we’re encouraging them, but we’re going to make the end cost the same,”Sortman said, adding, “We can’t have additional costs at the transfer station that isn’t covered by the hauler.”

“If we were charging the exact same amount at the landfill and the transfer station, who pays for the county people? We got a truck, we got a scale, we got equipment, we got all that that we use to take it the rest of the way, roughly 20 miles,” he explained.

All this is happening as budget season has landed and the county commissioners are trying to gather figures related to the various departments. After word came out earlier this year that the landfill was running at a loss, the forecast for the profiterability for 2026 is not looking so good either.

“We had a price increase last year, and I do believe we’ll see a price increase again next year, because the landfill’s current budget-that is a loss,” he said.

Budget figures for next year haven’t been finalized, so Sortman had no exact figures yet, but he still said it is running at a loss.

“The landfill is costing the county residents money, even though everybody’s perception has been forever, millions of dollars. It has not made millions of dollars in 10 years. It’s lost anywhere between one and $3 million annually for the last 10 years.,” he said.

“And I know when I say that everybody gets on my case because they don’t believe that’s true,”

he said.

The budget that RMS presented for next year has millions of dollars worth of loss, he noted. Part of that is that the transfer station needs some of its equipment replaced.

“The transfer station right now needs a new truck. That’s approximately $150,000 to haul the garbage back and forth. Last year we bought just the trailer for $100,000 this year we need the tractor, I guess for $130(000)- $150,000. They need a new belt that moves the garbage. That’s $75,000 and they also say the scale is broken for exiting, so we don’t capture the full amount of weight, so we’re losing money when we’re checking people out. That new scale is $135,000 and yet operating cost is at a loss without those in it. Without any of those even in it just the operational cost for the transfer stations is at a loss,” he said.

Sortman’s personal opinion is that the transfer station should close, but he stressed that he was speaking for himself and not the entire board of commissioners.

“First of all, I think it should be closed. But second, my conflict is, I believe the transfer station is of value to the residents, he said.

“Like I would, and I know again, the haulers would hate me for this. I would say no haulers, only residents, or only small haulers. Maybe you know small trucks of haulers. We still accept the big containers and all that. I think…why do we do that? We tried to stop the containers. We took so much pushback from the haulers that we said, Okay, we’ll let the containers still come. But that’s a lot of garbage that we’re moving that I don’t think we should move,” Sortman said.

“I think what they (county residents) need to know is that both the landfill and the transfer station are costing the county taxpayers millions of dollars annually, and it needs to be fixed. You can’t keep operating a business at a loss,” he said.

For now, in less than two weeks, fees at the transfer station will increase from the current $23 for individuals to a $30 minimum. Commercial haulers’ fees will be: Municipal Solid Waste: cash customers, $95/ton; individual accounts, $85/ton; commercial business accounts, $85/ton; commercial hauling enterprise, $85/ton; and certified waste haulers, $80/ton. A minimum fee of $30 is charged on each transaction.

It’s most likely that the haulers will pass their added costs onto their customers, but to what extent no one knows as yet.

“The rate increases have got to happen, because right now it’s bleeding, and it needs investment, and without the increase, we won’t even come close to being able to make the investment, let alone ever break even. This year alone, we can’t. We can’t break even if we made all those investments,” Sortman said.

“So we gotta look and say, okay, do we have to do the truck? Do we have to do the scale? Can we just do the belt this year, next year? Because we don’t have a half a million dollars worth of profit to fix the stuff that needs repaired…so yeah, we’re worried. We have a lot of issues that we’re trying to overcome. And I don’t know of any other answer besides rate increases or layoffs, and we haven’t done any layoffs. All we’ve done is the rate increase,” he added.