When Alexandra Salvation Army staff turned up to their local transfer station to get rid of rubbish dumped at their stores recently, they were told they would have to pay for it - something they have not had to do for at least seven years.
The Central Otago District Council had been bearing the cost of dumping goods that could not be sold, but during its long-term plan considerations this year, councillors decided they would no longer cover that cost.
However, nobody told the Salvation Army.
The army accepted goods that people no longer wanted, through a pick-up service or at a drop-off point behind their church.
Goods were also often placed outside their shops after hours.
Among them was a significant number of unusable items, and while as much as possible was recycled, some items were just destined for landfill, Alexandra Salvation Army Family Store manager Robin Austin told the council yesterday.
In a report to the council, its waste minimisation officer Sophie Mander said the cost of dumping those items for the 2011-12 financial year was $5809. The year before it was $4424. She said there was a proposed $6000 budget for this year but that was removed during the long-term planning budget planning process.
Before that decision was made, council staff had discussed with Salvation Army staff the budgets involved and recommended steps be taken to reduce the amount of material dumped, but that is where their communication ended.
Cr Martin McPherson said he was concerned that this was "out of the blue" for the army.
"I feel we have let them down ... frankly, it's just not good enough."
Mr Austin said had they known about having to pay the transfer station fees, they could have worked something into their budgets, but "having to fund this would certainly affect the way we fund other things in the community".
In the past three months, the army has paid about $1200 to dump rubbish.
While some councillors argued that they should help the army fund rubbish dumping because of their communication mistake, deputy mayor Neil Gillespie disagreed.
"It was a conscious decision by council to exclude that [funding] from the LTP [long-term plan] ... and now we are talking about changing our minds.
"If the issue is about us not giving them fair warning, then 0% [funding] would be fair for next year because we are giving them warning now."
Councillors resolved to fund the dumping of Salvation Army rubbish this year up to $4000.
Cr Gillespie voted against the decision.
