(UPDATED) More Spending Proposed in County Solid Waste Budget for 2025-26

April 24, 2025
By: Dwayne Page

The county solid waste department would take on more spending under proposals presented to the county budget committee Tuesday night.

Public Works Director Brian Reed addressed the committee in person and in writing asking for pay raises for staff including himself; adding employees in some cases, repairs, maintenance and equipment, installing internet service and cameras at convenience center locations that don’t already have them, etc.

Director Reed told WJLE Thursday night that the budget numbers originally used in this story were from a proposed 2025-26 solid waste budget that has now been revised and updated.

Here is what WJLE first reported:  The total proposed budget in solid waste expenditures for 2025-26 is $3,377,096, up by $650,706 from $2,726,390 budgeted in 2024-25. However projected revenues in the proposed solid waste budget for 2025-26 are up by $532,695 compared to 2024-25 going from $2,666,545 to $3,199,240.

Director Reed explained that the revised numbers are as follows: Proposed revenues for 2025-26 are $2,967,107, up by $300,562 from 2024-25, and that the proposed expenditures are now at $2,947,422, an increase of $221,032 from 2024-25.

The solid waste budget receives no local property tax dollars but derives its funds from payment in lieu of taxes, local option sales tax, hotel/motel tax, bank excise tax, wholesale beer tax revenue and other sources.

In his lengthy proposal to the budget committee, Director Reed stressed several issues including base pay scales for employees, convenience center employees, internet services and convenience centers, scale house operator and software, repairs and maintenance, and other equipment and construction at convenience centers.

“I am writing to help explain my budget request increases as follows,” said Director Reed.

*Pay requests for the Director, CDL Truck Drivers, Laborer, Convenience Center Employees:

“Concerning the pay scale for our employees, initially I would like to address the driver pay. Currently, our CDL drivers’ starting pay is $20 per hour thanks to a $5 per hour raise that was approved in the last budget. However, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics the median and mean hourly wage for truck drivers in Waste Management is $26.92 per hour and $26.87 per hour respectively. I would like to ask for a $2 per hour raise for the drivers bringing the base pay rate to $22 per hour. Next, I would like to change the base pay of the laborer position from $14 per hour to $15 per hour. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics the median and mean hourly wage for laborers in Waste Management is $18.39 per hour and $19.23 per hour respectively. This will put both positions at what the current average rate is at around year 9-10 of employment. I would also like to ask for a 0.25 cent per hour raise for the convenience center employees who are currently at $12 per hour and have been since approximately 2022 according to the employees that have been in the positions long enough to remember. I have also asked for an annual raise for myself of $2,950 which is slightly over 5%”

Under the request, the Director’s salary would go from $58,750 to $61,700.

*Adding an Attendant at Snow Hill and Village Market Convenience Center Locations on Saturdays, Seeking Grant to Convert Temperance Hall Convenience Center from Unmanned to Manned:

“We have a few convenience centers that see a tremendous amount of traffic especially on Saturdays. I would like to request approval to add a site attendant to help at our Snow Hill and Village Market locations on Saturdays. Due to the volume of traffic that comes into these sites, it makes keeping an eye on everything that is going on difficult for one person. This leads to people dumping things that we are not allowed to take and also has led to people scavenging through containers in some cases, and in one case a person was attempting to take gravel from the site. Additionally, I would like to apply for a grant to convert Temperance Hall to a convenience center that is manned instead of an unmanned site. Having the site manned would discourage out of county materials and restricted items from being dumped on us as well as prevent scavenging of materials. Since the building for Temperance Hall would be purchased through a grant we would have to wait until the grant work is completed before manning the site and would not have the cost of manning for the full fiscal year”.

*Installing Internet Service and Cameras at Convenience Sites that do not already have them:

“I would like to ask that we install internet services at all of our convenience center locations that do not already have internet availability. The reasoning for this is multifaceted. First off, it will help me as a director be able to more efficiently and effectively dispatch the drivers to the sites so we can make the best use of our resources, including our labor, equipment, and fuel. Having cameras at facilities also helps give record of events that happen at the sites such as complaints on employees, accidents on site, and a reduction of afterhours dumping and scavenging of waste. Currently, 3 of our manned sites have cameras installed and in comparing the number of loads from March 24 to March 25 those 3 sites collected 10 tons more waste in 2025, and it was hauled on 9 fewer trips than 2024. The cost of adding cameras for all of the sites that don’t already have them is approximately $1,600. This is budgeted for in the other supplies and materials line”.

*Adding Scale House Operator and Software for Scales:

“I am requesting to add an employee for the scale house as well as software for the scales. The new contract for the transfer station operations does not provide a scale house operator. This will allow for future growth on the recycling side by allowing DeKalb County to charge for some of the materials that can be recycled at a cheaper rate than landfill, but a fee will still apply (e.g. sheetrock, shingles, pallets). This is important because currently TDEC has a goal for each County to have a landfill diversion rate of 25% but is expected to move to 50% this fiscal year to align with the EPA’s 50% diversion rate. DeKalb County was granted an extension on the reporting to try to reach the 25% for the 2023-24 fiscal year because they originally were below the 25% target. The software is necessary to help ensure accuracy of our billing, origin reporting, and tracking of different materials we may accept for recycling in the future”.

*Repairs and Maintenance of Roll off Trucks and Convenience Center Equipment:

“As you look through the line items on the budget you will likely notice that there is more money budgeted for Repairs and Maintenance. While improvements have been made to our fleet of roll off trucks there are still areas that need attention in order to extend the service life of our roll off trucks. We have been fortunate to get equipment back at a safe level of operation, but our preventative maintenance is lacking due to funding. The extra funds requested would allow for us to do more preventative maintenance which long term should reduce our breakdown maintenance and help reduce our maintenance budget in the future. As for repairs and maintenance for the convenience center equipment in the past there has been $0 budgeted. That leaves no money to be able to fix even the smallest of break downs such as hydraulic hose replacements, much less motor or pump replacements. While these units are generally low maintenance some of them have had very little done since they were installed, some as early as the early 90’s. The compactors at Snow Hill and Shiny Rock are showing signs of significant wear and seem to be on their last leg mechanically and could use some work structurally but with some work should be capable of seeing another 10-15 years of service. The compactors at Liberty and Midway seem to be in better condition structurally but the operation of the units are very slow and need attention”.

*Other Repairs and Equipment at Convenience Centers:

“The last large line item increase in my proposed budget is for other repairs and equipment at Convenience Centers. As mentioned previously some of this would be for equipment at Temperance Hall that would be primarily funded through grant money. Currently our grant match with TDEC is 10%. TDEC is giving priority to funding projects that eliminate unmanned dump sites. I would like to apply for the convenience center grant for Snow Hill as well to add a compactor. As I have mentioned in the past a compactor will hold 8-10 tons of waste on a consistent basis verses an open top container which will only hold 1.5 to 2 tons consistently. This will help reduce our transportation, maintenance, labor, fuel, and overhead costs for years to come by reducing our loads from our busiest site if funded by TDEC. $277k of the $327k in the Other Equipment and Other Construction line items is from the grant funding and our grant match, the remaining $50k in the line item is to make repairs to the convenience centers lots for items such as paving, primarily at Alexandria”.

*Changing Haul Fees for Roll off Containers:

“I would also like to propose that we change our haul fee for our roll off containers from $200 to $250 per load. There are some accounts that it takes us over 2 hours of time to service because of location or the customer owns the container. In the cases that the customer owns their own container we have to make 2 trips to the customer and back in order to service the container. By my estimations it costs approximately $100 per hour to operate a commercial truck. By servicing customers that are located on the county’s extremities it is costing the county more to provide the service than it is producing in revenue. $250 would still be significantly less than the private companies that service the area charge”.

Director Reed concluded his remarks by saying “Thank you for your consideration of these items. Please take into consideration that the non-labor items are to primarily help us be able to operate in a more efficient manner for years to come, but until we are able to get the changes implemented, we will have the costs of implementing the changes as well as the extra cost associated with non-operating as efficiently as possible. We are fortunate that TDEC offers grants on a regular basis that will help DeKalb County to be able to upgrade the services provided over a period of time. If approved the upgrades will more than pay for themselves,” said Director Reed.

April 23, 2025
By: Dwayne Page

As the county commission ponders which direction to go with a jail project, it will also soon be confronted with what to do with the 51-cent property tax increase for debt service adopted last year. Once a tax rate is established by the commission, it must remain in place for a year until passage of the following budget. The new fiscal year begins July 1, 2025.

The county’s current tax rate is $2.51 per $100 of assessed value , up from $2.00 the previous year and all of the increase (51 cents) was added to debt service in anticipation of funding proposed construction of a judicial center/jail project through the issuance of bonds not to exceed $65 million but that effort failed at the polls during a public referendum last November. Although the bond issue did not move forward the property tax increase still remains in place for another jail construction project yet to be approved.

During Tuesday night’s budget committee meeting, County Mayor Matt Adcock said the county needs to make a decision on the jail issue before passage of the 2025-26 budget.

“Once you pass your budget you cannot change your tax rate (during the year) and you cannot change where your money goes. Once you pass 51 cents in debt service its just stuck there,” said County Mayor Adcock. “We have just accumulated about $3.4 million in our debt service. They (county commission) really need to make a decision on the jail before we pass this budget because we can’t keep the 51 cents in debt service if we are not paying it toward some kind of debt. We would either have to take it out and put it in the general fund, capital projects, or wherever you want that 51 cents to go. This (budget) committee will decide that. But you will not know how much to put in debt service to pay for a jail if they (commission) don’t decide what they want to build or where they want to put it or whatever they are going to do. We need to know what we are building before this budget passes,” said County Mayor Adcock.

If the county is to eventually build a new jail to meet state certification standards, a site has to be selected, either at the current location or somewhere else.

During a three-hour meeting Monday night, April 7 the jail committee of the county commission met to discuss several options for land purchase and costs and to again explain to the public why a new jail is needed. During the public comment period later in the meeting, the committee took questions from a large group of residents who turned out to give their opinions and, in some cases to express their frustrations.

Sixteen people took to the podium to speak, and their concerns ranged from outright opposition to building a new jail especially in their neighborhoods to keeping construction costs to a minimum if a new jail is built.

April 23, 2025
By: Dwayne Page

Fixing the heating and cooling system at the courthouse.

During Tuesday night’s county budget committee meeting, County Mayor Matt Adcock requested $600,000 from the capital projects fund in the 2025-26 budget for a long-term solution to a long-standing problem.

For now, County Mayor Adcock said the courthouse heating and cooling units have been temporarily repaired. But instead of replacing the 55-year-old chiller boiler system, he said an HVAC engineer has taken a look and determined that the existing one can be fixed.

“I asked Lee Company to give us an estimate,” said County Mayor Adcock. “They came and got this system running again. We had no heat and cooling for a while. The gentleman from Lee Company came down, looked at it, and said I know exactly what your problem is and I think I can get it fixed (temporarily) by the end of the week. On Thursday he showed up, spent some time down there that morning, got it running, and its been running ever since. However, it is not a permanent solution. We still have the same issues we have had for the last 15 or 20 years with the system not operating correctly,” explained Adcock.

“To get a more permanent solution an HVAC engineer came and looked at the boiler chiller system and gave us a rough estimate of approximately $550,000 for the mechanical and controls components and he listed the scope of work and things that need to be replaced. He said the system we have here works but its just old and needs to be upgraded. He said we have a great system and that Tennessee Tech runs on the same system with a boiler and chiller. It runs hot and cold water through the system. He said the pipes are corroded and the fans are shot and that it has not been maintained since it was built. He is talking about gutting out what we have and replacing it with new parts. He said it would be cheaper to stick with the same boiler system that we have than to switch to an HVAC or split units. I know how people might perceive this but its only an estimate. This doesn’t mean we will go with Lee Company. This project has to be competitively bid out. We have a private act that anything over $10,000 has to be bid out but Lee Company is coming and doing another estimate. They will have somebody to help me with the drawings and schematics, but it hasn’t been bid out yet. We don’t know what the total cost will be. It might be less than $550,000 or it might be more and that’s why I am asking for $600,000 in the budget but hopefully it will be less than that,” said County Mayor Adcock.

For more than five decades, the present-day DeKalb County Courthouse has served as home to the court system, offices of local public officials, the election commission, veteran services and for meetings and other purposes.

Built in 1970 through the federal model cities program, the courthouse has served the county well and remains an active place, especially on days when court is in session, but it has also often become an uncomfortable environment due to a faulty chiller boiler heating and cooling system which causes portions of the building to be too hot in the summer and too cold during winter.

Its been a periodic problem for several years and the county has spent significant time and money trying to fix it. But recently the system completely failed and needed immediate attention at a time when replacement parts for it are no longer easy to come by.

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