HONESDALE, PA — The Wayne County Commissioners on March 24 approved a letter calling for state legislative action to stop discarded computers, televisions and other electronic equipment from continuing to pile up at Wayne County retailers.

The county suspended its electronic recycling program on February 20, after a glitch in the state legislation supporting it, Act 108, the Covered Device Recycling Act, prompted vendors to stop collecting those items.

The glitch was an annual quota written into the 2013 legislation, which allowed manufacturers to stop buying back recycled electronics after their quotas were met.

According to Wayne’s February 20 statement about the “temporary suspension” of the recycling program, certified vendors who collected the electronics were forced to stop their collections after manufacturers stopped buying “and many have gone out of business.”

The law also prohibited counties from stockpiling electronics.

Earlier this month, the commissioners approved an interim contract for the removal of electronics already at the recycling center in February, but the pubic backlog continues.

In other business last week, Wayne Redevelopment Authority Director Jackie Young reported that grant officials had rejected three Community Development Block Grant applicants’ projects amounting to $41,000. They included a park project in Waymart Borough, where reviewers challenged the level of low- and moderate-income residents reported in the application. A 51% level is required for grant funding. Young said she could not explain the contradictory data, as “we had surveys done door-to-door.”

Projects planned in Damascus and Berlin townships were also rejected.

The $41,000 was re-applied evenly between two projects in Clinton and Canaan townships.

The commissioners approved tourism promotional grants including $10,000 each for the Wayne County and Greene-Dreher Sterling fairs, $5,000 each for the Greater Honesdale Partnership and the Hawley Downtown Partnership, and $20,000 for a co-operative Pocono Mountains Vacation Bureau billboard campaign.

Queried about a 25% cut in human services funding in the state budget that was finally passed by legislative action on March 20 without Gov. Tom Wolf’s signature, Commissioner Wendell Kay said he was “very disappointed.” In addition, there was action to replace the 10% human services cut made by Gov. Corbett’s administration in 2013, he said.

Commissioner Brian Smith characterized the state’s January decision to withhold some 2015-16 funding until the 2016-17 state budget as “sequestration,” a term Congress has used in federal spending reductions. The next state budget is due to be finalized in July, but so was last year’s.

Kay said the current budget was finally enacted with a $290 million deficit, even though “the state constitution requires a balanced budget.”