Lazaro Aleman
ECB Publishing, Inc.
Long aware that the fire and landfill assessments have been falling short of their intended purposes of making the fire and solid waste departments self-sustaining operations, county officials recently acted to correct the problem. The correction will ultimately translate into higher fire and landfill assessments for residents.
By unanimous vote on Thursday evening, Dec. 15, the Jefferson County Commission agreed to pay the Government Services Group (GSG) a combined $56,000 to conduct studies of the two operations and come up with new rates for the two assessments.
The $56,000 includes four on-site visits by the consultant firm plus reimbursements for its out-of-pocket expenses. It does not, however, cover meetings in excess of the four on-site visits, which will be charged at an hourly rate that can range from $285 to $75 hourly, depending on the classification of the GSG individual involved in the extra visit.
Per the GSG proposal, the company will perform a multitude of tasks that include collecting and analyzing data pertinent to the two operations, determining anomalies and trends, identifying the county’s costs to provide the two services, establishing the amounts required to sustain the two operations, and apportioning the amounts needed among property owners so that the assessments are fair, equitable and legally defensible if challenged.
The fire study will cover all properties, and residential properties. As County Manager Shannon Metty explained it to the board, the commercial properties will be evaluated separately and likely will be charged a tipping or similar fee.
The two studies, County Attorney Heather Encinosa explained, would provide the maximum assessments rates that can be charged for the services. It would then be up to the commission to decide the exact rate, she said.
Paul Henry, a citizen and longtime critic of the solid waste department, alone spoke on the issue. He didn’t want to say that he had told the commissioners so, but in fact he had, Henry said.
“I knew that one of two things was going to happen,” he said. “You either were going to stop spending this much money on solid waste, or you were going to raise the rates. So now, in addition to raising the rates, we’re going to spend $32,000, $23,000 and change to have it done.”
Henry referred to a multi-year annual report that the solid waste director had presented to the board in October detailing the department’s operational costs.
He quoted figures from the report to underscore his point that the department’s costs to put personnel at the various collection sites in order to stop the problem of illegal dumping had increased from $125,217 in 2020, to $365,935 in 2021, to nearly $407,000 in 2022.
He noted that the auditor in the 2021 audit report had noted a deficit in excess of $600,000 and a shortfall of $195,000 for the subject year. Several times, Henry reminded the commissioners, he himself had come before them and offered ways that the department could save money.
“And I’m not even charging for the advice,” Henry said.
“The emperor has no clothing, gentlemen,” he continued. “You’re spending too much on solid waste. I can’t make it any plainer than that. It’s right here in black and white from your own solid waste director. Your costs to have people sit in their trucks at the dumpsites are just going up and up. And guess what? Amendment 2, it’s going to go up again next year, and it’s going to keep going up until we hit the magic $15 an hour. So this is the gift that keeps on taking. Please, do something about this. If you don’t like me talking about it, that’s fine. But I’m just one of 14,000 or 15,000 people in this county that’s going to be paying this extra money.”
Henry repeated alternative solutions that he has recommended previously to curb the illegal dumping at the collection sites that didn’t entail the hiring of employees to solve the problem. These solutions included the installation of automatic gates and high-resolution cameras at the sites.
“I’ve spoon fed you better solutions,” Henry said. “You may not like the messenger, but don’t kill the message. Again, it’s not my job to do this. And you’re not paying me $32,000 to do it. But you’re damn sure spending my money, and I’m sick and tired of it.”
The board listened politely to Henry’s presentation then voted immediately after to proceed with the two studies.
Currently, the annual fire assessment is $113.40 for single-family residences, $64.41 for multi-family residences, and $0.063 per square foot for properties classified as non-residential.
For solid waste, the annual assessment is currently $225 for single-family residences, $112.50 for multi-family residences with bedroom, and $225 for commercial.
The county first imposed the fire and landfill assessments in the early 1990s, when it established it own fire department and joined a consortium to establish a regional landfill in Madison County. Before that, the county had contracted its fire protection service from the City of Monticello, which then had a paid fire department, and it had operated its own landfill off Tyson Road.