According to outgoing Deputy Emporia City Manager Mark Detter, the city’s solid waste fund has been on a decline for quite some time now.
In fact, according to figures presented to Emporia City Commissioners Wednesday afternoon, the fund has had an operating loss over the last three years of right around $1 million and $2.7 million in the last four.
As of Wednesday, the city is anticipating a loss of $575,000 for 2026. In recent years, the city has instituted multiple rate increases in response to ever-rising costs of doing business. However, Detter says rate increases are a temporary solution to a continuous problem, saying raising rates is not something the city can do year after year.
So what is the right solution? That’s exactly what the city is looking to get to the bottom of with the development of a new solid waste master plan. Detter laid out the information both to city commissioners during their study session Wednesday and to KVOE News in an interview following the meeting.
The development of the master plan is a separate conversation from the city’s ongoing considerations of updates to the Emporia water treatment plan discussed earlier in the month.
