The City of Lubbock hopes to improve the efficiency of solid waste collection and other field operations with a transfer station. The Lubbock City Council intends to issue as much as $18.75 million in certificates of obligation to finance the project, a form of debt funding through bonds that do not require voter approval.
“The capital cost is bigger than we can cover in cash in any one particular year,” City Manager Jarrett Atkinson said. “I think, just as importantly, this is a multi-decade-long benefit, multi-decade-long project. Spreading the cost of it out, rather than trying to hit all of our customers upfront in one, two, or three years, spreading that out makes a lot more sense. It’s the common method for financing public infrastructure. I think it works well.”
The transfer station was approved in the FY 2022-23 budget. The City Council initiated the process to issue the certificates of obligation. “Our number one priority in the General Fund, in terms of capital [projects], is that transfer station,” Atkinson told KCBD. The argument for a transfer station is to cut down on the time solid waste trucks spend driving to the landfill, the West Texas Regional Disposal Facility west of Abernathy, to be emptied.