The rigmarole between Waste Pro USA and the Sunflower County Board of Supervisors may soon be coming to an end.
Apparently Waste Pro still hasn't been collecting trash in the county, and on Monday the Sunflower County Board of Supervisors voted to toss out their contract.
The three-member panel of lawmakers voted unanimously to cancel their contract with Waste Pro effective June 1. Prior to Monday's official declaration, the notice to terminate has been strictly verbal. District 3 and District 4 supervisors Ben Gaston and Anthony Clark were absent due to illnesses.
At their last meeting, the county leaders had requested a report from County Administrator Fred Washington on what the county has spent to date collecting its own trash.
During his presentation on Monday, Washington reminded them of the yet unpaid $29,416.41 invoice from Waste Pro that prompted the report.
"At docket time, the decision was that we would hold out on that, and I was tasked to go back and look and see what we had spent," Washington said.
In his report, Washington stated, "We spent $4,000 on fuel, roughly $4,000 with maintenance, our landfill fees for the month (was) a little bit under $8,000, the insurance was $213 and I'm still waiting on the payroll figures for the road department for the month of May."
He added that the payroll figures would be the larger of the reported expenditures. Washington reported that at times up to 40 workers were collecting trash across the county in order to service the residents and that the figures did not include the commercial dumpsters, only the residential canister pickups.
Washington said Waste Pro has not picked up their roll-off dumpsters at the county barns even though the new company, Waste Management, has already dropped off their roll-off containers at the facilities.
District 1 Supervisor Glenn Donald suggested that they get a backhoe with a grabber on it and remove the garbage from the Waste Pro containers and put it into the Waste Management receptacles.
He implied that Waste Pro should provide restitution for more than just the month of May because the county has been collecting its own trash for a while.
"I think they owe us for other months too," he said.
Washington said he has spoken to Waste Pro officials and they assured him that they would pick up the receptacles, but he hasn't been able to pin them down on a definite date.
"I tried to get specifics, to tell me a date when you're going to remove them, and I have not been able to receive a date when they're going to remove them," said Washington.
Board President Riley Rice asked if Washington knew the specific date that Waste Pro stopped picking up trash and Washington responded, "No, because they continually showed their presence. They showed on Saturdays and Sundays. That was part of the issue. They were picking up occasionally on Saturdays and Sundays when people didn't have their containers set out at the street. They just ran a truck through."
He claimed that to be part of their strategy, and Washington said they never supplied him with the necessary information to implement proper pickups.
Rice said he wanted to assure the public that the county is moving forward to get their trash picked up.
"It's not our fault. Waste Pro just quit on us and that's the reason why we are having this problem," he said.
District 5 Supervisor Gloria Dickerson emphasized that the residents also need to know a schedule so they will know what days to put their trash out.
The county has already purchased the residential containers, two trucks—the second one was scheduled to be delivered Monday—hired workers to man the vehicles and contracted with a landfill for dumping.
Washington said they are working toward establishing regular scheduled routes, which should be very close to the previous routes schedule and hope to have it finalized by the end of the week.
A schedule provided by the county for advertisement purposes appears on Page 2.
In other business,
The board heard a presentation from Blue Cross & Blue Shield representatives Diane Stewart and Tim Holyfield. The county is apparently at a 114% loss ratio and the purpose of the mid-year rundown was simply to give the lawmakers an update on their current status.
It was also an opportunity for them to ascertain where they stand and to see what, if any adjustments needed to be made for the upcoming budget. "We've had some good years. The last several years were relatively flat; we actually had a decrease. This past year we had a nice little increase," Holyfield said.
He said it was about a 30% increase and diabetic patients and diabetes medications were primarily driving up the numbers. Holyfield said eight of the top 10 claimants are diabetes patients and Stewart added that just three of those employees utilize 52% of the county's healthcare dollars.
They presented and discussed ways to possibly reduce future claims and address health disparities with the employees early, before they become more serious health problems later on.
Holyfield said that when renewal time rolls around that they would consider all options to reduce the county's financial obligation. Sunflower County currently pays 100% of its employee health insurance premiums, which are presently around $600 per individual, per month.
