- Well, seeing that we have a quorum, I'll call to order this meeting of the Board of Directors of the
- Waste Reduction District of Monroe County for Thursday, January 8th, 2025. Mr. 2026. Mr. McClassen,
- will you please call the roll? Piedmont-Smith. Here. Thomas. Here. Wilts. Here. Jones.
- Wofford. Here. Thompson. Deera. You have a quorum present in the room and at the moment no members online.
- All right. Our next item of business per the agenda is election of officers. But since we have barely
- a quorum here and there are some appointments from
- entities that have yet to be made or confirmed I would entertain a motion to postpone this until February.
- I move we continue this item to February 2026. Second. Any discussion. All those in favor please say
- aye. Aye. Any opposed. All right so we will take a look at this at our February
- is it February 12th meeting? Next we have the executive committee meeting minutes from December 2nd.
- So those are just for your information. Then we have the board of director meeting minutes from December
- 11th. So do we have a motion to approve? Move approval of the board of director meeting minutes from
- December 11th, 2025.
- Are there any comments or questions about those minutes? Okay. All in favor of approval, please say
- aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. Those are approved. We will go on to the controller's report, starting
- with cash flows. We have Teresa. The cash flow summary memo is on page 10 of the fourth packet.
- Cash flow summary along with the debt service and capital cash flow statements were sent in an email
- on Wednesday. Here are the balances as of December 31st. Debt service $149,236.46. Capital $46,148.34.
- As noted, the December
- operating balance operating fund grass and landfill post closure balances will be updated per notes
- on the cash flow summary sheet. The issue with your end and adjusting entries to operating account was
- has been resolved and landfill post closure bank statement was received today. All account balances
- and we will have updated December 2025 cash flow reports and January 2026 board packet.
- What questions are there on the account balances? Alright, are there any questions for control? I think
- she meant that she'll have the totals in February. Because she just said January and that's what we're
- doing now. Yeah, we'll have. We'll have the at the February board meeting in that packet you will have
- the 12 month 2025 cash flow statement as well as the 2026 January cash flow statement.
- Sounds good. I'm good with that. So the numbers for operating and for landfill post closure that were
- in the email from yesterday, are those tentative numbers or? Those were actually November numbers. I
- should have grade those or mark those out, but those were from November.
- So when we have our December totals for our next board meeting, will we also have the detailed sheets
- for line items for budget? Yeah, you will have those statement, cashflow statement. Okay, great. Any
- other questions or comments on the cashflow? All right, we can go on to payroll and claims then.
- On page 11 of the packet, you have a summary of the pre-approved payroll and claims since our last meeting
- in the amount of $200,136.45. The backup for those numbers are on pages 12 through 33. The payroll and
- claims for approval this week were sent in an email on Wednesday and are in the amount of $233,790.82.
- Documentation was included in that Wednesday email. This brings a total of all payroll claims that we
- are recommending for approval to $433,927.27. Are there questions regarding any of these claims? I'm
- going to go ahead and make a motion to approve the payroll and claims
- as presented in our packet with the date of January 2nd, 2026 and also to include payroll and claims
- as submitted via email on Wednesday, January 7th, 2026. Okay. All right. We have a motion on the table
- in a second. Are there any questions regarding the payroll and claims?
- Are there any comments from the public? Is there any member of the public who would like to make a comment
- on the payroll and claims? There's nobody here in the courthouse chambers, and I don't see any hands
- on teams. Any final comments from directors?
- All in favor of approval of payroll and claims as moved. Please say aye. Aye. Any opposed. All right.
- Those are approved. Go on to resolution twenty twenty six oh one to amend the district approved vendor list. Mr.
- Yeah, as we have to do from time to time due to changes in the vendors that we use, we do need to amend
- our approved vendor list. You can see the memo on page 34 of the packet outlines the vendors were requesting
- to be added and the vendors were requesting to be removed and the reasons why. So I will.
- point out and apologize that on page 36 of the packet, the signature page of the resolution, for some
- reason the header did not update and it has the wrong resolution number on that. So assuming that the
- board takes a vote on this today, I will get a corrected version sent out for electronic signature after
- the meeting.
- All right, can we get a motion on the table regarding this resolution? I move approval of resolution
- 2026-01 to amend the district approved vendor list. Second. All right, it's been moved and seconded.
- Are there any questions from board members? Is there anybody from the public who would like to comment
- on this resolution? All right, seeing none, any final comments?
- Do we need a, for a resolution, do we need a roll call vote? Not for this one. There's no financial
- matters involved here. All right. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And that resolution
- is adopted and we'll look for the request for electronic signatures once that page two header is corrected.
- All right. Then we move to a correction with our...
- Adjustment Entries in the Accounting System. Will it be Mr. MacLassan or Ms. Goins? I believe Ms. Goins
- will explain this. Yeah. So per the accounting adjustments that we made was from when the LAL Associates
- completed the conversion of the accounting system from Harris to LAL, there was a description fee of
- approximately $48,000.
- The previous controller, Kathy Martin, and myself have worked with representatives from Lao and the
- State Board of Accounts and the government accounting consultants, Hartman and Williams, to identify
- the sources of this discrepancy. Lao and State Board of Accounts both advised that the district should
- not make immediate adjustment entries and wait to see if any or all of the discrepancies would correct
- itself during monthly reconciliation. This, unfortunately, has not happened.
- Those who have looked closely at the issue of the discrepancy is the result of clerical entry made in
- Harris and that no funds are missing. Monthly bank reconciliations have always balanced and there are
- no unaccounted for expenditures or missing receipts. Many of the heirs have been
- identified and corrected. However, there was still discrepancy of approximately 17,000 that the district
- has been unable to correct. The State Board of Account advised the district should make a correcting
- adjustment in this accounting software to remove the discrepancy. Due to the district carrying
- the discrepancy in Lowe for over a year and a half and the approaching year and reconciliation, staff
- had made the necessary correcting
- entry in law so that we can start the 26th year without this discrepancy. The board was asked
- to retroactively approve the adjustments at the January board meeting. All right, thank you. So there
- was a accounting or a record keeping
- discrepancy when we moved from Harris to Lowe, but both the State Board of Accounts and our own research
- and the Department of Williams consultants have determined that there's not actually any discrepancy
- in the money, but just the record that needs to be corrected. Is that correct? Nobody that we had look
- at this found anything to them that indicated that
- you know, any funds were missing. This was more of a bookkeeping and entry errors, most likely in Harris,
- that then got carried over into Lau when that transition occurred. Okay. Can we get a motion on the
- table to approve the accounting software adjusting entry? As I find it. If I could, and if I,
- I missed if Ms. Goins specified, but the,
- The net adjustment is a claims increase of $17,199.50. There's no resolution or ordinance in here. It's
- not a resolution. We just have to approve it. We were advised that the board just needed to approve
- the adjustments similar to when they previously have approved
- to make changes to the budget lines when things were misentered. I'm going to go ahead and make a motion
- to approve the accounting. Adjustment entries necessary to. Bring wow and Harris together in a balanced
- way. Second. Now I would like to maybe reframe what happened. Because the public may be
- may have their ears perked up, understandably so. And so I think if we were to look at the cost of doing
- business as a district and our bank account, not Harris, not Lowe, our bank account every month,
- after month, after month, there's no issue. It's all balanced out and it all works. This is about entering
- a number or a number of numbers
- into Harris that somehow replicated itself or replicated something that was off balance. Now, with Wow,
- that's less likely to happen. Correct. Because there is a reconciliation process with bank accounts
- that Harris didn't have. So this is probably not going to, hopefully not going to happen again. So this
- is not money missing. This is not money that's gone
- you know, poof, the money has always been there and will be there. It is about what the accounting system
- says is there and that is wrong. So that's all we're doing is correcting an entry error. Do I have that
- right? Yes. That's what the public's going to care about. I would expand on that a little bit and say
- that when SBOA was looked at, this actually was discovered and started
- being looked at when we actually had an auditor on site auditing years 21, 22, and 23. And so she took
- some time to look at it. And the suspicion was that there was an error made that recurred again and
- again, like with every payroll or something like that, over who knows how many number of years. And
- so that's what got the amount
- to where it was, but again, it was an entry, a clerical error, not missing funds. Yeah,
- thank you, Commissioner Thomas, for clarifying that. And we did discuss it at the executive committee
- meeting as well, which I know you were unable to attend. But yeah, it's not great. We never like to
- have inaccuracies in our
- accounting system, but it is clear that this is not a matter of missing money or money that was spent
- inappropriately. This is a matter of record-keeping error that was perpetuated over several years. And
- to Commissioner Thomas's point with regard to LAO, you know, the fact that it has stayed consistent
- over time and we've been using LAO for a year and three quarters now, yes, there are
- LAO handles things differently that appear to prevent this type of thing from continuing to happen.
- Yeah, Councillor Wells. In addition to the software system being a little bit more thorough in reconciling,
- are there any other changes that you have or will make to maybe internal controls that
- that might help this not happen again? Yes, and this was discussed at the executive committee meeting
- that as a result of this, we will review the internal controls and if there are changes necessary or
- that would help to prevent these types of things from happening again, then we will bring those to the
- board. Thank you. All right, any other questions from board members?
- public an opportunity, if any member of the public would like to comment on this, even though it's not
- a resolution, it's just a vote to retroactively approve this data entry correction. Any member of the
- public here to make a comment? Seeing none, I'll come back to the board if there are no final comments.
- I would recommend a roll call on this. Yeah, I would too. OK. Let's do a roll call vote on the motion
- to approve the accounting software adjusting entries. Wilts? Yes. Thomas? Yes. Piedmont-Smith? Yes.
- Swalford? Yes. Motion passes unanimously. All right. Thank you. I'm sure that's a relief to Controller Goins.
- and the executive director to get that start, start the year off fresh with. Yeah. All right. Next on
- our agenda is a CAC report. Do we have anybody from the CAC to give a report today? I was not provided
- a written report and I fortunately do not see any CAC members here to provide a verbal report. Okay.
- While we're on the subject, have you received any new applications for the CAC?
- Not to this point, no. We continue to promote the committee and encourage those interested to seek to
- be appointed to the committee. I have reached out to Republic and Rumpke to anticipate that they will
- both seek to have somebody appointed to the committee in the near future. Right, so if anybody is listening,
- we need more members for our Citizens Advisory Committee.
- for the waste reduction district, which is usually just one meeting a month and allows you to give input
- into how we can reduce waste and increase sustainability in Monroe County. So please reach out. And
- I would just add, not knowing how broad of a viewership we have that state statute does state that members
- of the committee must reside within Monroe County.
- While we can move on to department reports then, we'll start with the administration. So Mr. McClassen.
- Yeah, just a couple of things. Off the memo, as we've done for the past few years, just kind of an observance
- of Earth Day and Arbor Day, we are again doing online orders for compost bins and rain barrels.
- That website, wastereductiondistrictorders.com, is up.
- For people to place orders, we anticipate having the items ordered available to pick up beginning around
- April the 24th. We are again this year accepting natural holiday trees and wreaths free of any ornaments,
- tinsel decorations for recycling at all the recycling centers.
- And Ms. Polkrod does still have a few openings for both in-person and virtual programs in the school
- systems for the second semester. So if anybody is interested, they can reach out to her at the district
- office to get things scheduled. And then beyond the memo, we are, as we do every time this year, getting
- started into a new legislative session.
- There are a few bills of interest to waste districts that have been filed. The big one is a battery
- recycling bill that focuses on specifically on lithium ion batteries and not all lithium ion batteries.
- But it is a bill that has been filed at both the Association of Indian Solid Waste Districts and the
- Waste Hauler Association
- providing input on. We are currently attempting to get a meeting scheduled with the authors of that
- bill. Both groups would like to see some changes, potentially some expansion into what's covered by
- that bill. And then that bill also kind of leads into a broader issue of extended producer responsibility,
- which solid waste districts are keen on.
- getting the legislature to take up and discuss, which they've previously done for electronic waste as
- well as some mercury devices in previous years, so. Can you give us the bill number on that, please?
- I can, sorry, give me a minute. Just in case anybody's interested and they can contact their legislators.
- House Bill 1231. Mr. McClassen, when you say extended fiduciary responsibility, what do you mean? Extended
- producer responsibility. Oh, producer responsibility. Yeah, which basically puts some of the burden
- for managing
- difficult to recycle, potentially hazardous or safety issues to dispose of products and materials back
- on the producer of those items. It's not uncommon throughout the country. Many states have such bills
- in place, but they tend to be for
- specific items or materials, and there's obviously not a lot of uniformity or consensus state to state
- as to exactly how that's managed. But it is something that would be beneficial to districts, to recyclers,
- and even in some instances to waste management companies.
- to help alleviate some of the burden that's faced when, you know, things get brought to us that are
- expensive. I mean, you know, the battery bill is right now, you know, one thing it doesn't specifically
- address are damaged lithium ion batteries, which are very expensive due to the safety issues
- with transporting them and storing them to get those properly
- managed for recycling or disposal. So, and we have taken some of those in and we've had, you know, absorbed
- the cost of properly managing those. So, having some, you know, any type of expanded producer responsibility
- on the books certainly benefits a number of the entities involved in managing those products and materials.
- Thank you. Are there any other questions or comments about the administration department report? I did
- want to... Oh, sorry. I just thought you said there was more than one bill. Is there... Oh, I'm sorry.
- Yes. You guys got me all worked up on the battery bills.
- The other one that's out there that to my knowledge has not been filed yet but have heard that is in
- the works is and this I believe is a short session so we're not real sure where it might go but is a
- fairly hefty bill that is potentially going to,
- rewrite Title 13 of the Indiana Code, which is environment and where solid waste districts fall. So,
- you know, following the rumors and what's being said about the authoring of that bill and seeing if
- it will get filed and then obviously would be very interested in having input on what happens with that.
- the filing deadline is tomorrow. Is it for house? I think so. That's what I learned today, so I'm not
- sure, but that doesn't mean it won't show up next year, right? So that's right. Yeah, or that certain
- aspects of it won't show up getting piggybacked onto bills that are moving. So thank you. So
- I wanted to follow up. In December we had a joint meeting with the CAC and went over our five-year plan,
- and it was noted that there may be a new structure for submitting five-year plans. There may be some
- other template that we're going to have to use. Is there any word on that? I have not heard any additional
- information. The state's working on what they're calling a materials management plan, which is intended
- to replace the solid waste management plan.
- And there are, there was federal money made available for grants to help, you know, local entities,
- you know, develop their plan. Once we knew what the state's material management plan was, there's been
- delays in that money being available to be applied for, I would say because the plan's not available.
- I have to know what the management plan is to know what I'm applying for. So, yeah, I really don't know
- where that's going or what's going on with that. Since we discussed that in December, I have received
- no additional information regarding that. On a totally different topic.
- Since our agreement with one sustainable Joe has concluded I wanted to inquire is the district in a
- position to continue that project should either a nonprofit or a apartment complex desire to try a composting program.
- So we've had some discussions internally about that, and we certainly are in a position to, you know,
- if you'll recall, one sustainable job brought two new complexes on in November, and we agreed to fulfill
- the 12-month partnership, or at least the remainder of the 12-month partnership period for those two
- complexes. We're certainly in a position to do that, where we are also
- providing some assistance to some of the complexes that are beyond that 12-month partnership period
- that have had, you know, needed some minor repairs on their compost bins or things like that. You know,
- our ability to continue it or in what way, shape, or form we would want that to continue, I guess staff
- was wanting to have the,
- new executive committee in place and initiate those discussions with that executive committee and kind
- of, you know, what the staff feel like we have, you know, the time and resources to do and what would
- the board's wishes be for the future of that program? Okay, great. So we can, the executive committee
- can talk about that in the coming months.
- Are there any other questions on the administration department report? So then we can move ahead to
- the household hazardous waste and recycling reuse center report. Is Joey Long on the teams? He is. TSD,
- if Joey Long and Lee Paulson could be allowed to participate in the meeting, please.
- So I will start off with the recycling and reuse just to give everybody a heads up that we are getting
- a lot of requests for garden materials that people can start their seeds and plants in for this upcoming
- spring so we are currently saving material for that to reuse and we're glad to be able to do that so
- if somebody needs something you know please get in sooner that way we can save the material for you.
- The hazardous materials were in process of talking to our
- got our trainer to do our annual has whopper training. We're trying to nail down a date that works for
- everybody. Again, with the batteries that Tom hit on, we're looking at some places that will take larger
- lithium ion watt hour batteries. That's our problem right now is a lot of places don't want to accept
- batteries that has a lot of watt hours over them. They have a limit that we can accept. So we're
- constantly looking at different outlets for that. And the rural sites, they're operating as normal.
- The only thing I can add is we just completed some gravel work at the Elstville site on Tuesday. So
- we added some gravels, packed it in and fixed out by the road and stuff. So that site should be good
- to use for a while. And our next site that they are focusing on will be the Bethel Lane site. And I
- don't have a date when they will be doing that.
- But it's in the playgrounds. That's all I have. If you guys have any questions. Thank you, Mr. Long.
- Are there any questions on that report? I don't see any. So thank you. Oh, I have one question, actually.
- Yeah. Usually we have a table with the details of the tonnage of recycling and household hazardous waste and such.
- Is that so since yeah, I can get that to you since we switched the room. We have stuff coming at different
- dates, so I have to wait till all the different vendors sends me their stuff or I can make sure it matches
- up to the numbers that I have. That way everything is. Reporting the right way, so sometimes you know.
- One of the vendors, you know, pushes me out a week or two. Later than most vendors.
- before they send me an early report. I think the issue this month was the board packet going out so
- close to the first of the month and holidays winding up December that I think things are just behind
- and we should have everything caught up and that table to you for February. Okay, great, thank you.
- All right, shall we move on to landfill and environmental compliance with Mr. Paulson?
- Okay, good afternoon. There's a lot of echo there. The report that I submitted pretty accurately describes
- what's going on at the landfill right now. We're still, the thing I'd highlight is that our treatment
- system is down right now because one of the valves is not working correctly.
- It has had a technician out to diagnose and waiting to get on the schedule to get it replaced. Again,
- with the holidays at the end of the year and the beginning of the year here, it's just trying to get
- the right things in place to get that going. Currently, our pond is at an okay table right now. We are
- hauling some water right now just to kind of make sure that we're maintaining. But I've emailed and
- contacted the appropriate people and just haven't heard anything back yet, so just waiting. Other than
- that, we're free to ask questions if you need. All right, thank you. Are there any questions for Mr.
- Paulson? I had a question related to the leachate generation table that you included.
- The total for the last six months is about 1.3 million gallons generated. And when I look at the same
- period in 2024, it was only 200, about 230,000. So it was a lot less in the last six months of 24 versus
- the last six months of 25. I'm wondering why that is. It seems to be our weather patterns right now
- at the end of the year seem to be more drought.
- Um, and then, um, we had, uh, last year we had, were spot cleaning pieces of the pond to try to keep
- some of that invasive weed stuff out of the pond. And we just didn't have a lot of generation. Uh, we've
- got several, you know, we, we just didn't have a lot of generation. Um, and that's, uh, kind of how
- it was. Um, that's just some of the stuff I can control and I can't control.
- that. I got a green light finally. I'm looking at the August 25 of hauled volume was that did we not
- do a pond clean out at that time to remove invasive species that also basically drains all the water
- out of the pond? Yeah in 25 we did. Between them and RH Marlin.
- So there's 276,000 gallons of that is specific to really when we get the invasive vegetation weeds that,
- you know, get into the pond and become to a level that they're a burden. The only way to remove them
- is to suck everything out of the pond. And so that, you know, as to generation that during that time of year,
- Otherwise, we would just be letting the pond fill up and not doing any hauling or treating. And then
- the other high figure was for December, 278,000 gallons. Does that have to do with the valve being out
- of order? Well, the hauled number being that high would, yes. But that 300 or almost 400,000
- gallons of leachate generation. Again, things aren't consistent, you know, year to year, but that's
- not out of the range of normal for that time of year. Okay. I see there is a, there is, on December
- of 24, I see now what she, I think she's talking about. There's an error in the December 24 that it
- didn't fully populate, so that would be a little higher.
- But yes, there's an error. We had more than four total gallons for the month of December at 24, yes.
- Yeah, that total is that math doesn't work. Yeah, not at all. Not that I see that. Sorry about that.
- So the difference is not that great. Four gallons in a month would be nice, though. Easy on the budget.
- Yes, it would. Yes, it would.
- Thank you. All right. If there are no other questions we can move to public comment. This is a period
- of open public comment for anybody who would like to comment on the work of the voice reduction district.
- Please raise your hand in teams if you want to say something. Not seeing any hands raised.
- So we can go to our final item, which is comments from directors. Do any directors have any comments
- to make at this time? I'd just like to say it's been a pleasure working with Mr. Swafford. I understand
- that he's not in the running to be reappointed from Ellisville. So thank you so much for your many years
- of service. I thank you guys.
- Thank you. Oh, thank you, Mr. Swafford. We'll miss you here. I'll miss you guys, too. I really appreciate
- all of your many, many years of dedication here. All right, so I'll just end by saying go IU and we're
- adjourned.