Re-thinking Panola County’s role with commercial garbage may be a good idea — if done for the right reason.

After crunching numbers the county administrator showed Panola Supervisors where the county is losing several thousand dollars per month by offering the service. Supervisors agreed that phasing out the commercial end of the service made financial sense.

To get a grasp on the issue, one needs to think back when the decision was made to get into the commercial garbage service. Then Sanitation Department Director Dean Joiner was actively seeking customers throughout Panola through personal contact with the blessing of the former county administrator.

Since then that administrator has retired and a new sanitation department head has been named.

Unlike residential collections, commercial collections aren’t mandatory. Most businesses throughout the county already had multi-year contracts with other commercial sanitation companies and the county service would have to “break the ice” to effectively compete.

Unlike a new start-up service, Panola County has an existing transfer station and inmate labor, factors that should keep the cost of doing business lower than other services. And several of those using the service agree that the fees charged are considerably less than those charged by competing businesses.

But if the sanitation department’s residential fees are subsidizing the commercial end of the business, the fees need to be raised (a notion that some current commercial users say is okay with them).

If the board decides to stay with commercial pick-up, a marketing scheme and a long-range plan and financing should be considered because some businesses might not consider county pickup while presently under contract with a competitor.

Using available state inmate labor may help to keep cost down but the county needs not subsidize garbage fees. We already do that in the form of “no-interest loans” to the municipalities of Como and Crenshaw who are behind on payments to the county for residential garbage services.

When garbage fees are subsidized by others,  those fees become taxes.

If supervisors decide to continue commercial garbage pick-up, the fees should be fairly distributed to those who use the service.