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.