{"id":4147,"date":"2013-06-18T08:00:08","date_gmt":"2013-06-18T12:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=4147"},"modified":"2013-06-20T06:23:53","modified_gmt":"2013-06-20T10:23:53","slug":"tipping-fees-no-contract-no-list-of-fees-no-details-of-expenses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/06\/tipping-fees-no-contract-no-list-of-fees-no-details-of-expenses.html","title":{"rendered":"Tipping fees: no contract, no list of fees, no details of expenses"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nNo copy of the contract for\r\ntipping fees from the landfill it privatized some years ago,\r\nno list of what those fees were,\r\nand no detailed accounting of what they were used for:\r\nthat was the answer from Lowndes County’s Open Records Officer.\r\nShe also took more than 3 days to produce this non-information, answering\r\nthe day after<\/em> the recent County Commission meeting.\r\nHere’s her answer:\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"2008<\/a>\r\nFrom: pdukes@lowndescounty.com\r\n
\r\nSubject: Open records requests\r\n
\r\nDate: Wed, 12 Jun 2013 20:42:16 +0000\r\n
\r\n

\r\nGood Afternoon,\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nIn response to your open records requests of June 6, 2013, please\r\nfind the following:\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nFor the contract or agreement addressing tipping fees, you may\r\ncontact Regional Commission Representative, Julia ShewChuk, at\r\n229-333-5277. Lowndes County is not the custodian of this\r\ninformation. You many find fee amounts in Lowndes Countys\r\nComprehensive Annual Reports located on the countys website,\r\nwww.lowndescounty.com<\/a>.\r\nTo access these reports, go to the\r\nGovernment tab at the top of the homepage, then County Manager,\r\nthen Finance, then Financial Reports. Fees are located on page 38\r\nfor 2008, page 38 for 2009, page 38 for 2010, page 39 for 2011 and\r\npage 36 for 2012.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nTo be clear, tipping fees are paid by anyone that takes material to\r\nthe landfill. Lowndes County receives a host fee for any material\r\nbrought into the landfill. These funds are used for post closure\r\ncosts related to the closing of the old Clyattville landfill. The\r\ncounty is required by the state to maintain and monitor this old\r\nlandfill for approximately 15 more years.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThank you,\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nPaige Dukes\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\r\nApril Huntley’s Open Records Request of 6 June 2013, #1:\r\n

\r\nContract or other agreement with Veolia or Onyx or Evergreen\r\nor whoever provides a portion of tipping fees to Lowndes County,\r\nspecifying what these fees are.\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nAccording to the response Lowndes County \r\n“is not the custodian” of a contract to which Lowndes County is a partner.\r\nDoes this mean the county doesn’t have a copy of the contract?\r\nIf not, how do they know how much to expect in fees?\r\nIf they do have a copy, why didn’t they produce it in response\r\nto an open records request?\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nApril Huntley’s request #2:\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nAmount of tipping fees received by Lowndes County for the past\r\nfive years.\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nEach of the Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFRs)\r\nhas on the indicated page a column that says Landfill.\r\nThe\r\n\r\npicture on the right above<\/a> is of page 38 in the\r\n\r\n2008 CAFR<\/a>.\r\nThe rest are similar and may be found\r\non the county’s\r\n\r\nFinance Reports page<\/a>.\r\nPage 38 for 2008 has a line item for “Solid waste host fees”\r\nwith $50,000 income in the Landfill column.\r\nIs that the tipping fees?\r\nWhat is this Landfill Fund?\r\nIt is defined in 2008, 2010, 2011, and 2012 as:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nLandfill Fund. The fund accounts for solid waste host fees collected\r\nand post-closure care cost of the closed landfill.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\nIn 2009:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nThe Landfill Fund oversees the post-closure expenses of a closed\r\nlandfill. Solid waste host fees provide revenue to cover these\r\nexpenses which have been accrued to cover the anticipated cost of\r\nmonitoring the landfill in accordance with environmental\r\nregulations.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nThat’s nice, but after 2008, the CAFRs don’t say how much the\r\nsolid waste host fees were.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThere’s also a Landfill revenue item for “Contractual services”\r\nin the Landfill column: $26,461 for 2008, $115,352 for 2009, $83,421 for 2010,\r\n$53,471 for 2011, and $43,772 for 2012.\r\nWhat is that, and why did it suddenly swell and then go back down?\r\nIs that the tipping fees?\r\nIf so, why did they go down?\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThose post-closure costs seem to have gone up from\r\n$66,008 in 2008 to $77,368 in 2012.\r\nWhat they are spent on is not specified.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nFor 2011, on page 59 there’s a “Transfer To” the Landfill Fund\r\nof $46,205,\r\nand a “Transfer From” the Landfill Fund to the General Fund of\r\n$3,556.\r\nBelow that table there’s a note that says:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nTransfers were made from the nonmajor governmental funds and\r\nenterprise funds to the general fund for administrative cost.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nWhat those administrative costs might be and why they started being\r\ncharged is not specified.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nMaybe the tipping fees are the “Other Income” of $462,824\r\nin 2009, $624,153 in 2010, $811,150 in 2011, and $411,070 in 2012?\r\nWhy does the county leave us to guess?\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe same 2011 page 59 table shows transfers from the Landfill Fund to\r\n“Nonmajor governmental funds” of $4,167 and to the “Sanitation Fund” of\r\n$435,000.\r\nWhat’s the Sanitation Fund? In the 2008 CAFR:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nThe Sanitation Fund accounts for sanitation services in anticipation\r\nof creating a fee based service.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n2009:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nThe Sanitation Fund accounts for sanitation services with the\r\ninception of a fee based service.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n2010, 2011, and 2012:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nSanitation Fund. This fund accounts for fees collected by the County\r\nfor sanitation services.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nAnd for the Sanitation Fund, there are various amounts in and out,\r\nbut no detailed accounting as to how many card customers for the\r\ncounty’s waste collection centers,\r\nwhat the expenses went for, etc.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nApril Huntley’s request #3:\r\n

\r\nAccounting of usage funds from tipping fees.\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nThe county’s response mentions nothing but this:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nThese funds are used for post closure costs related to the closing\r\nof the old Clyattville landfill. The county is required by the state\r\nto maintain and monitor this old landfill for approximately 15 more\r\nyears.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"2009<\/a>\r\nWhich doesn’t explain page 58 in the\r\n\r\n2009 CAFR<\/a>\r\nwhich seems to show $50,000 transferred from the Landfill Fund\r\nto the Keep Lowndes Valdosta Beautiful Fund\r\nand $622,000 transferred from the Landfill Fund to the Sanitation Fund.\r\nThe explanatory note on the same page says:\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

\r\nTransfers to the\r\nKeep Lowndes Valdosta Beautiful Fund and the Sanitation Fund are to\r\ncover operational cost of the fund.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nSo the CAFRs the Lowndes County’s\r\nOpen Records Officer<\/a>\r\npointed to as answer to these Open Records Requests\r\nanswer none of the questions that were asked.\r\nOpen Records Officer is a position required\r\n\r\nby state law<\/a>\r\nso that\r\n\r\npeople will know who is responsible for satisfying open records requests<\/a>.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No copy of the contract for tipping fees from the landfill it privatized some years ago, no list of what those fees were, and no detailed accounting of what they were used for: that was the answer from Lowndes County’s Open Records Officer. She also took more than 3 days to produce this non-information, answering […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[51,20,88,478,3,479],"tags":[1339,6458,6456,6457,8701,6455,1724,8723,8702,154,6453,8710,12,7,8734,730,6454,656,6452,8772,2201,8700,8773,6],"class_list":["post-4147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-klvb","category-law","category-lowndes-county-commission","category-solid-waste","category-transparency","category-trash","tag-accounting","tag-cafrs","tag-clyattville-landfill","tag-comprehensive-annual-financial-reports","tag-georgia","tag-host-fee","tag-keep-lowndes-valdosta-beautiful","tag-klvb","tag-lake","tag-landfill","tag-landfill-fund","tag-law","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-lowndes-county-commission","tag-open-records","tag-open-records-officer","tag-paige-dukes","tag-sanitation-fund","tag-solid-waste","tag-sunshine-laws","tag-transparency","tag-trash","tag-valdosta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-14T","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4147"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4155,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4147\/revisions\/4155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}