County’s proposed septic fee stinks

Members of the Marathon County Board should flush a proposal to charge a new fee to properties served by private on-site wastewater treatment systems (POWTS).

The proposed fee is nothing more than a money grab by Marathon County supervisors who see a way to increase revenue without the distaste of calling it a tax.

State codes require POWTS to be serviced or inspected at least once every three years. The intent of this is to work to catch failing systems before they become a health hazard and to work to bring existing systems up to code. The ultimate goal is to protect ground and surface waters in the state for all residents and visitors for generations to come.

Inspections and service of systems are routinely done by licensed plumbers and waste haulers and is a cost paid by the property owners. Much like the materials pumped from holding tanks, the characterization by some committee members that rural homeowners are somehow freeloaders on county services doesn’t pass the smell test.

County governments maintain the database to keep track of what properties are due for inspection. The county also takes enforcement measures when property owners refuse to comply. If it goes as far as involving courts, the additional costs can be recouped by the county through this process. Across the state the rate of noncompliance has gone down since the rules were enacted. This is a good thing and means that more people are doing their due diligence in upkeep and routine maintenance of private septic and holding tank systems.

Administering the program is a function of the county government. It is fundamentally no different than the work done by any other government employee from the custodians who keep the courthouse clean to the crews mowing the lawns in county parks or the sheriff’s deputies patrolling to keep the roads safe.

The county’s Conservation, Planning and Zoning department projected the cost of administering the program to be about $125,240 per year for staff time, postage and software support. This number warrants additional scrutiny, especially in regard to personnel costs and if the staff hours are dedicated to this task or are also utilized to cover other office functions.

Marathon County has an annual tax levy of about $58 million. To put this in perspective, the amount county personnel say is spent on administration of the program comes to about .02% of that levy amount. The actual tax impact is less than that amount.

If the intent is to lower taxes by shifting more costs onto rural portions of the county, the savings people may see in their tax bills would be measured in pennies. More likely there would be no general tax savings through implementation of a new fee. Instead the county would just use the additional fee revenue to supplement the budget.

While the proposed $6 per year fee is unlikely to break the bank for any property owner, it is odious to shift the cost of a task that benefits all residents in the county onto the backs of the 30% who are not connected to municipal wastewater systems.

The Central Wisconsin Publications Editorial Board consists of publisher Kris O’Leary and editor Brian Wilson.