OSWEGO — During Tuesday’s meeting, the Labette County Commission highlighted movement in the efforts to bring a sales tax question to the voters of Labette County.
During the Jan. 15 special meeting, commissioners discussed a resolution, which allows Labette County to seek permission from the state legislature to submit a proposal for a county-wide sales tax, which would be equally split to benefit all 10 fire departments in the county.
Resolution 2026-06-L, was approved by the commissioners.
“That’s a one-eighth sales tax,” Commissioner Vince Schibi said during Tuesday’s meeting. He also noted that this was the third year of working on bringing this sales tax to a vote.
State Senator Virgil Peck has sponsored Senate Bill 303, which was discussed by the Senate Committee on Assessment and Taxation on Wednesday, Jan. 21, according to kslegislature. gov. However, his bill has not yet been passed. The bill would amend state statutes to allow Labette County to bring this question to the ballot.
According to a letter from Director of the Budget Adam Proffitt to the committee, the sales tax would expire five years after enactment and can be extended or reenacted for additional fiveyear periods by submitting another ballot question to voters.
The bill will have to be approved by the Senate and then approved by the House of Representatives, according to Commissioner Terry Weidert. After this, the county could present a ballot question to Labette County voters ahead of the November elections.
According to the legal notice, published in the Jan. 20 edition of the Parsons Sun, the funds distributed through this sales tax may only be used for training, equipment, fire trucks, and brush trucks, with annual auditing to take place.
In other business, the county commissioners voted to lift the burn ban enacted last Thursday, based on the recommendation of Emergency Manager Charles Morse. Morse also presented an annual agreement with Day and Zimmerman to allow them to conduct open detonation, with a 50-pound limit per hole. Commissioner Tom Barrett said this is standard practice and noted that it has been done for decades.
Also discussed was a letter sent to the Labette County Solid Waste Management Committee from an attorney at Green For Life Environmental, or GFL, which manages the transfer station located in Parsons.
This letter requests that the Solid Waste Management Committee engage in good faith negotiations and finalize a rate adjustment by March 1.
See TAX, Page 3.
The current 10-year agreement was signed in 2023, with GFL managing the operation of the transfer station and utilizing a third-party hauler to take trash from the transfer station to the GFL landfill in Arcadia for the rate of $44.25 per ton. The contract also allows for 2% increases each year for inflation.
Previous proposals from GFL included increasing the dumping fee to $56 to $65 a ton for rear-loaded trash trucks and $75 for roll-off boxes and any trash from out-of-county customers. Some of these proposals were brought up last April, as reported previously in the Parsons Sun.
Part of the letter reads: “ As we have communicated throughout 2025, GFL has faced unexpected increases in operating costs stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent economic factors affecting our supply chain and employee workforce. Section 5.4 of the agreement explicitly provides for the parties to negotiate amendments in good faith when such unexpected costs arise. Unfortunately, despite our repeated outreach over the past year, we have not yet been able to commence these necessary negotiations.”
The letter also stated that the current rate imbalance was unsustainable.
Schibi said he felt the committee should meet with GFL and work out an agreement for another year or two at an increased rate, but said that if GFL decided to break the agreement, they would still have to pay $150,000 per the contract.
“I expect that to be resolved, hopefully within the next 30 days,” Schibi said.
The next Labette County Commission meeting will be held on Monday, Jan. 26, at 9 a.m. at the Labette County Courthouse in Oswego.
