I will call to order this meeting of the Executive Committee of the Waste Reduction District of Monroe
County for Monday, no, Tuesday, September 1st, 2026. And we'll just do a roll call, Mr. MacLassan. I'll
keep it like this. Here. Madeira? Here. Will? Finally.
All are present with Commissioner Maduro on lock. All right. Thank you. And we have staff members, Joey
Long and John Arnold here, of course, as well as Tom Glesson. All right. So we have some meeting minutes
to review the August 4th minutes for the executive committee. Any comments or corrections?
I made a few type of directions in the Dropbox. Okay. Else we can have motion. Move to approve. With
corrections. None. Okay, do we have a second on the motion to approve? I said.
Sorry, did you did you second? So, did you second the motion? Oh, sorry. Yes, I second it. Thank you.
All right. I'll call vote, please. Madeira. Yes. Yes. Yes. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you.
Any comments on the board of director meeting minutes from August 13th? We don't need to vote, but just
have some oversight of that before it goes forward. I made some type of corrections to that too.
Any comments? All good. We can move on to the host fee review. Do you have some data here?
provided by the staff. Mr. McClassen, you want to walk us through this? We had a question and a request
regarding the host fee revenues and why the amounts paid by the two entities vary and so we put some
information together on page 13 of the packet and there's two primary reasons that
you know, the amounts are so different between the two entities than that. First off, it is based on
tonnage on the volume of the figure going through the facility. And the second one is, even though we
entered into a new host fee agreement when the Brumke facility opened, Republicans continued to pay
their fee monthly, which is how they had always done it in the past. But the new agreement
does say payments are due quarterly and so Brumkey pays quarterly. So what you have there is the tonnage
that was reported for the facilities and the corresponding post fee payments with a note that under
the host fee agreements that waste received from the district and the city of Bloomington
Uh, as exempt from the host fee, uh, and, uh, those, those tonnages do not reflect the subtraction,
uh, of those volumes. Did not have time to crunch those numbers, but, uh, in essence, uh, public services
receives cities. The waste collected by cities annotation, Cronkite receives, uh, the orange bag and
bulky item waste collected by the district.
So there's really no way for us to check that the amounts are accurate, so to speak, because it must
depend on them to report to us the tonnage and subtract out. Well, yes, but there's also the tonnage
comes from a quarterly tonnage report that they're required to submit to IDA that the accuracy of which
the facility reporting does attest to.
And obviously we had our tonnage. When I started putting this together, just because it hadn't been
a while since I've looked at it, I did a request from city sanitation, their tonnage figures for the
previous 12 months. And it said they would get them to me. I haven't received those yet. I don't know
when someone should receive. We will crunch the numbers a little tighter and make sure that things are
matching up with the paint received.
And do you collect data on the tonnage of the orange bags? Yeah. Yeah. The board sees that. That's in
the report Mr. Long puts in the board packet every month. And so I know you just said this, but I'm
still processing. The difference between the tonnage under Republic and Runke is
that Republic has more of the other entities? Yeah, I mean, that's the logical assumption. You know,
that's the more established facility that's been in place since the 80s. Interestingly enough, was originally
constructed and opened by Rumpke, purchased by the Republic. And then, and then yeah, Rumpke went to
Just a couple of years ago, I opened the resource recovery facility. So, you know, that's a newer facility
that's still growing and generating business. So, do you anticipate that Rocky's tonnage will increase?
I don't know that I'm in a position to say yes or no to that. Because ideally, from the district's
perspective, ideally, both facilities tend to just start to decrease because we're diverting material.
The reality is that that is not a trend that we necessarily have seen over the years. But that is the goal.
The other side of that too is that those obviously those facilities service an area much larger than
Monroe County only. The tonnages that you're seeing there, to my knowledge, for the investment that
they made in that facility, that's not sustainable. They need more volume coming through there to justify
of the investment that they've made in that facility. But the number here is only the tonnage from Monroe
County. Correct. So they probably are getting tonnage from that. Yes. But still. Yeah. The first quarter
or the third quarter of 2025, they received greater than 9,400 tons of material. That was just a portion
of Monroe County waste.
So, is it your intention, Tom, that once you get the city sanitation data, you can check the host fee
payments from your public? Yeah, yeah. And once you have a chance to do so, you can check the host fee
payments from Romkey based on our orange bag. Yeah.
Yeah, we have the data that we need. I just didn't have time to crush those numbers, putting this together.
We have the data we need to confirm the run key post fee payments, but I need the city's data to be
able to do it for Republicans. I think, yeah, without that information, to me, I'm like, okay.
I don't know what to say about us, but verify. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's great that we're paying less.
Yeah, I guess the I guess the other question I would have is how does this compare to
before Rumpke became operational? As far as the money that came into the district. We can look at that
more closely. Off the top of my head, I believe that our host fee has increased since the host fee received
has increased since that facility opened. And noting that, although we did,
budget next year, a decrease in host fee revenue based on the year-to-date data that we had to this
point. But I think in looking at the numbers here, we're looking at almost $360,000 in host fee revenue
over the past year, and I think $350,000 is what we budgeted for 2026, and so I think
I guess I'm hoping that the health care revenue that we budgeted for 2027, you know, winds up showing
to be a conservative and we'll surpass that in actual revenue to receive. But again, our mission is
to not increase those. Well, wait, this is
Yeah, the statement underneath the table says total host fee paid July 2026 through June 2026. I'm sorry,
that should be 2025. So we are trapped because that somebody 358K. Yes, I mean, it's for a different
12 month period, but right? Yeah, we have been putting the 27 budget together and looking at year to
day revenues. We were looking short and it's possible that when I when I did that,
you know, one of them may have been behind on getting a payment. That does happen from time to time.
Budget-wise with regard to the hosting, we're in good shape. Okay, so dumb question. The tonnage isn't
showing the subtraction.
of the other entities, but the fee won't go, won't be like pulled back to those other entities,
will it? I mean. No, so basically how it works is, you know, we'll just, we use round numbers for simplicity
sake, but you know, the facility says, you know, they determined that they need to charge $50 a ton
based on their operating costs.
So what the public pays going across the scale is $52.75 a ton. The $2.75 comes back to us. When the
city goes across the scale or when our boxes go across the scale, it's either at $50 a ton
or at a pre-negotiated rate. And so, and there's no $2.75 attached to that. Okay. So it's just the money.
Yeah. He's saying no. No. It's any residential that goes, that's not part of the city. So if I took
my trash down there, I would still pay the 275. Correct. Right. A private hauling company is the city
sanitation department does not pay a host fee on the tonnage that's in their trucks that goes across
the scale. The, you know, the,
The waste that won't be hauled from our facility does not pay a host fee. When it goes across the scale,
everything else pays a host fee. I think, Kate, to clarify, the host fee is not going to decrease.
I mean, these have already been paid to us. When we take
They're not like, we're going to deduct a number corresponding to the city. No, that's kind of what
I was getting for the future and the 2 entities. They do that calculation before they send us the post
to be got it. That makes sense. That's what I was missing that part. And I believe Joey would have.
But what Republic reported as city tonnage. But we don't have the city standard.
Confirm that. I see. Okay, yeah, we do check it at the end of the year from time to time to ensure it
matches up with what's going with the state to report with the State Department. Okay. Have we done
the kind of matching up with city figures? Previously, or is this the first that were? No, it would
have it would have been done last year. We do it about every year.
And that, you know, and I'm not, I'm not going to say it doesn't come out to the penny every year, but
when you're talking about a quarter million dollars over the course of a year, we're 1020 dollars off.
We're not going to go chasing it. Okay. Well, I think this is very helpful. Jody, did you have any questions
or comments on it? No, no, I don't actually.
and this was I was taking notes. This is very helpful. It helped me understand things that I previously
had not actually before. Good. Thank you. OK, so maybe at a future at the next executive meeting we
can. Yeah, we just need to get the sanitation gets that data to us and we can create some numbers.
Sounds good. All right. Then we have the issue of the group health insurance. Yeah. On this discussion
we've been looking forward to. So we're being advised by our current insurance carrier as well as our
the JEE Benefits or Benefit Administrators that come to the next renewal on January 1, we will no longer
be able to offer coverage to employees working under 30 hours a week through our group health insurance
plan. Jody, I apologize we're not here.
I think I can email this stuff. This is a sheet that I provide the employee that we are going to do
renewal that shows what rate changes are going to occur with the renewal. I'll give them an idea of
where they are. And then the next two pages are
showing we have two employees who, well, we have three employees total that will be losing coverage
under those terms. Two of which are Medicare eligible,
but carry insurance because their spouse is not Medicare eligible. So the other two sheets that I provided
to show what J.A. benefits put together, what those people would be paying on the marketplace. Now,
when you say we only have three employees in this category of under 30 hours, does that mean
We only have three employees who are using the health insurance benefit that are currently enrolled
in the plan. We have eight employees that fit that criteria. I don't know, but only three of them are
enrolled in the plan. So potentially another five, if we switched employees, if there was a change in
employees.
and individuals. We have up to eight people in this category. Right, yeah. You know, always, yeah, employee
turnover can always result in bringing somebody in that wants insurance, that's replacing somebody that
is not. Sorry, I interrupted you. No, you're fine.
Let me get this stuff over to Jody anyway. So the market place is always an option. It's not the cheapest
option that's out there, but it is an option. And J Benefits has other clients in similar positions
that offer a stipend
to those employees that fit in a category like this. And so that they can use that to go out on the
marketplace and find their own coverage. That would say that's something that would be new to us and
there's criteria and limits and stuff that, you know, in place and you don't, I guess in stipend may
not be the right word because you don't just give them
$1,000 a month as they go find it and they find a $500 a month plan. But you know, so you have enrolled
in their plan and then find out what the premium the monthly premium is and then make arrangements to
reimburse them for all or a portion of that, depending on what kind of limits you set.
What's another key? Is there ours? Well, yeah, and that is and I know that. I think then we enjoy and
I have discussed some potential staff reorganization that would potentially allow for some of these
employees to.
uh, increase their hours, you know, to become benefit eligible. Um, but that does, uh, that does generate
some, you know, additional issues. Um, you know, because how do you pick which employees get the job?
You know, the positions that are over 30 hours a week, because I don't know that we could
Well, we haven't gotten into enough detail of it yet, but it is something that we're discussing. Joey,
I don't know if you want to, but it's specific to South Walnut, but the potential is there to take somebody
that's working two shifts a week at a rural site, 11 hours a day, and give them a 10 hour shift at South
Walnut on a weekly basis, which would get them over 30 hours. They would have to agree to it.
But you know, those are long days, they would have to agree to it. And if they didn't agree to it, and
that's a change we wanted to make, then are we telling them they don't have a job anymore? You know,
so there's, you know, there's certainly not anything that we've talked about or worked our way through
yet. But it is something that we're, we're toying with.
Um, because, because I've been pretty seasoned in GBN. Yeah. So our GBN customers, current ones, is
one picked up more often because they're busier and we have other clients that want to come on and do
recycling. But we currently have our truck drivers working Wednesday through Saturday. I only need a
side operator on Saturday. I don't need a truck driver because we don't do no pickups.
So therefore I want to move those to Tuesday through Friday where I can offer more businesses and take
advantage of my truck drivers. That would open up some shifts on Saturday that I could use a relief
operator or a site operator to fill the void. And right now I have a material handler position that
we're not feeling until we decide what we want to do. That way we take advantage of our opportunities.
The cutoff is exactly 30, so 32 would work. 30 would work. That's crazy count. Okay. Overall, is it
possible to do something where you do not offer health benefits to people under 30 hours except for
grandfathering and the three people, not the eight people, but the three people, is that like horrible?
I'm being told that's not an option. Okay. So we have to offer it to everybody. And that's, that makes
a lot more sense to me. So you offer it to everybody until you don't. Right. And 30 hours is that cutoff.
Yeah. I'm just trying to think of an attrition way to kind of make it.
work. I've asked eight ways from Sunday. What are these sheets for? These two, that is something that
Dave benefits put together for me that is that takes the two existing spouses covered by our plan.
but they're not Medicare eligible. And this is what this is comparable plans to what we offer. This
is what would cost them out on the marketplace to go get their own insurance. Okay. Which the actual
employees who are eligible for Medicare, two of them,
Yeah, the actual employees whose spouses these are are Medicare eligible. This Medicare provides the
same level of health insurance benefit as. What the district currently provides? I I I would have to
ask you about this to make that comparison. I don't know that I know enough about Medicare, so there's
a lot that's complicated, especially if they're already eligible, but they didn't take it.
It seems to me, based on what you said just a few minutes ago, how we have to offer the same thing to
all eight people that are in this situation. That stuff is kind of irrelevant. Well, that she she put
that together for me so that if you know if it was determined that we had no way to continue to offer
health insurance to those employees, but.
uh, they have, they have some clients that in those situations will give money to help offset this cost.
So she wanted to show us what these employees would be looking at spending out in the marketplace.
If we said, we'll, you know, you can look at what, you know, this whole purpose for an employee and
a spouse. And it's, it's not real cut and dry here, but so under our PPO plan, you know,
The district's paying over $2,300 a month, or well, no, the $2,300 a month is the monthly premium.
Of that, the employee's paying $465. So the district is paying about $1,900 a month for the coverage
for that employee and their spouse. That's the 80% employer portion of that premium.
What column or table? So on the employee benefit premium rates deductions under the first section, the
Anthem Balance Funding 909C, which is our current PPO plan, the 2026 renewal section under the employee
and spouse line, the monthly premiums, $2,320.10 a month.
Of that, the employee portion is 465.62. So the remainder of that's paid by the district. OK,
so you know, so then you can look at that and say, well, you know, since we budgeted based on that.
Without impacting budget, we could offer X dollars a month. To that employee.
for them to go out on the marketplace and find their own publishers. But you also have an HSA plan.
Yeah, we do have an HSA plan. And a lot of places now only offer HSA plans because of their... So that's 1862.
Yeah, and that brings up the offering the two different plans is another issue that this brings to light
because the general rule and Anthem's rule to offer two different plans, you have to have 10 enrolled
employees. And each plan? No. We currently have 12. If we lose three, we go to nine.
We only have 12 employees total that use our health insurance. Well, again, that's, you know,
like we have, and that part of that is the demographic of our employees, because we have those rural
sites and most of those, most of the people that work at those rural sites are retired or semi-retired
and they're Medicare eligible.
they've chosen to stay with Medicare and not deal with the group health insurance, which is fine. That's
their prerogative. So we can't offer any group health insurance if we have fewer than 10 participants?
No, we can't offer two different options. At which point are you forced to pick one type or the other?
The HSA? I haven't thought that far.
But, okay, but I mean, do they tell you which one you have to do? Okay. That was what I meant. Is it,
this is a choice made for you. Okay. Looking at that same spot on the HSA plan, it looks like it's about,
it's more expensive. Why would that, that's. So. Employee and spouse under the HSA is 1,718 per month.
versus 2328 per month for the PPO. But the district contributes a thousand dollars. Oh, that's not per
month. No, that's annually. Got it. Okay. So it is the cheaper. Okay, not much really, but. And then
these are equivalent to these, but not including dental vision,
Dental and vision is wholly separate from our health insurance. It's not a combined option. Are people
eligible, part-timers eligible for these too? At this point, SIHO has not said anything about the dental
and vision. Fascinating. Well, we're self-funded for dental and vision. Okay. And that's probably why
they just, SIHO just administers the plan and the claims for it.
I'm not asking for any decisions or anything today. We don't have, I mean, we need to start thinking
about it, but we don't really need, well, we're not even gonna be in a position to make any decisions
probably until November when we start to get the renewal quotes.
And we can have, you know, as we always do, would have J.A. benefits, you know, we always, obviously,
always look at the existing carrier. But then we would also say, OK, you know, give us some other options
to look at, you know, are there better policies or are there cheaper policies? But J.A. benefits is
telling me that they're seeing this across the board, this sort of being a minimum.
So a possibility would be a policy that says if you work more than X number of hours, but not more than
30 or not more than 29. So 20 because you don't want to give a health insurance statement to someone
who's working four hours a week necessarily just saying so. So people working 29 and under. We can't
offer you.
health coverage, but we can offer to give, to pay the X amount toward whatever coverage you purchase.
But we can't give it to you. We give it to, but somehow it's administered that they pick what they want,
but we somehow help pay. Yeah, I don't know all the details of how that works. That's just something
Jay, this is a benefits has put that out as a possibility. And if there's interest in looking at that,
then we can certainly
you know, get into the details of how would that work and who is the district paying money to? I think
I would like to know more details about that. I mean, because. Reorganizing staff. I mean.
Like you said, who are you going to? How are you going to decide which employees to keep? Which I mean,
are they going to be? Are they going to feel forced to take the extra shift?
Well, that's part of the question too, because if we take, you know, if we take a staffing reorganization
to the board and the board approves that, well, that just became what the position is. If you're not
going to work those shifts, we have to find somebody who will. Which, yeah, isn't inappropriate. It's
not maybe the
It's not necessarily a position that I want to be put in or put an employee in, but. But it would be
about the positions and not about the individuals at the positions. How many hours a week do the folks
that are below 30 that get the benefits work? 23. All eight of them? So that would be. Occasionally. 23.
Occasionally 25 when we have safety trainings and stuff that they need to come in for. Again, I know
this is a lot and I get it because I've been dealing with this for a few months. It's not pleasant.
Regardless of how this comes down,
You know, it's not a discussion I'm looking forward to having with employees, but it's the position
that we're in. I mean, the fact of the matter is not very many places pay part-time employees health
insurance. So it's amazing and I love it.
And then I think we should look at how we can continue. But at the same time, we have to also recognize
that it might be something that we have to phase out. Well, and we can maybe think if we're thinking
long term as these employees retire or leave, we might think about a staff reorganization so that
We don't, we're not in this position for a long term. Yeah. I mean, if we, if we find, you know, a solution
with current staffing that works, but then maybe that's the long-term solution. Um, is it once, once
somebody that's in that position, the rest of your grandfather did and then, and the new hire.
is under a different set of benefit options. Yeah, we have to do that. We weren't allowed to do that.
We are allowed to do that. And if we can offer somebody 10 hours, if we can do if we can do if we can
bring it up to this, we're going to do something like, you know, if we're going to offer a stipend for
the marketplace, I I'll double check. But I don't know that I think that's
something that we could do to offset the change taking place now and not have to offer up to new employees
that didn't lose any benefit to begin with. I see. Okay. I would want to confirm that, but I think because
we're not, we didn't just, you know, that's, that's the other thing that's like you said that, you know,
go find somebody else that's offering health insurance to somebody working 23 hours a week, but they've
got it. And it sucks to have to say, you may not have it anymore. Yeah, I just don't think long-term,
it's the best way to do things to say, okay, we're going to give you $1,800 to spend on insurance.
I mean, it's bureaucratically a pain and it's who knows what the market's going to cost. Well, J-Benefits
has other clients that do do that.
So let me get more information on that. Let me find out how many of those, if any of those clients are
public entities. And how does that logistically work? Right. How does an employer set that criteria?
And who is the money being paid to? The employee, to the carrier for whatever plan they pick? I think
we can certainly look at more details on that.
Again, this is just when you budgeted when we budgeted. Did you budget and you didn't? I don't think
budget per position, assuming the possibility of every single employee taking the Max benefit. No, the
budget budget is based on.
current enrollment. Yeah. Okay. That's what I thought. I remember plus, plus a cushion so that if somebody
gets married, somebody has a child, somebody leaves, it's not on insurance gets replaced by somebody.
So we have that, that money there to cover that without an additional appropriation. Um, yeah, but if
we went into this open enrollment period and everybody that's been a bit eligible said, I want insurance,
we're going to need an additional appropriation. Yeah.
But again, we have, I mean, again, turnover is hard to predict and what comes of that. But we know our
current employees, we know those that are Medicare eligible and want to stay on Medicare. We know those
that are on their spouse's coverage. Of course, spouses could always change jobs or have changes to
their benefits.
the likelihood that we get a substantial enrollment increase in an open enrollment period is not very
good. Okay, so it seems like we do want more information about this option to provide funding towards
external health insurance. More info on marketplace policies. And again, that's, and that's what this,
this is the, here's the situation we find this in. Let me know what questions, whatever information
you have, so I can get that together. It does seem like we should probably know if this is going to
be impacted, dental vision, other benefits.
Yeah, that's a different animal because it's a different company and are self-insured. All right. So
to the three employees who work 23 hours who use our insurance, are they also using dental and vision?
We know. I don't know. I know one does.
Maybe two for sure, because they've asked me questions. Yeah, thank you. So we need to know what.
And patch. If if this is going to be impacted and it might just be that we could still offer. Then yeah,
I know I'll I'll confirm I've never heard of that, but. We could also.
look at it as, okay, we recognize this is a change that is being, you know, put onto us. And so we will
lessen the blow. So we'll offer, you know, 1600 this year, and then next year we'll offer 1300. And
then after that, it's like a thousand, but you know, to phase it out. So. Yeah, I think that, I mean,
that would be
board's decision and that's certainly an option. And, you know, um, once we have renewal rates, it would
be easy to say, okay, the district is, you know, not putting, you know, because you're off the plan,
we're saving this much money so we can put this much money toward, you know, you going out
on the marketplace. But that's where I'm going to talk with you, benefits about ton of this work, how
the criteria set is paying who, what money,
Um, yeah, but I mean, you know, we can't, we can't sit there and say, we'll pay the 1800 we've been
paying. We have, we have to know what the budget impact of all that's going to be. I mean, it should
be a wash depending on what the increase and stuff is. That's why I didn't say 1500. Right. But right.
I mean, it's yeah.
There's a lot to consider. It is. It's not going to be a fun process. But it's not much that we have
a whole lot of control over being put in. Yeah, right. So I'm sorry, Tom, what was your reaction to
Kate's idea about phasing out? I think it's a possibility.
Something like that is obviously the board's decision, but there's certainly an option that gives those
employees that are put in this position some time to help determine what coverages are out there that
are best for them and get their finances in order to deal with that.
And that, you know, then it's. But November will be here before we know it. Yeah. And I guess the other,
I guess the other, what we have the other side of this that we haven't, you know, somebody, one of you
asked, you know, how does Medicare compare to what we currently offer? Which is, which is a question
because, you know, one of the, you know,
When Megan and J.A. put these sheets together for me, we were only looking at the spouse because we're
going to tell you, you know, you're Medicare eligible. We can't, you know, we can't offer you insurance.
You have to go on Medicare. Oh, this is just covering one person. This is covering two people. Yeah.
Pretty duperty. Only a four spouse.
So, you know, I apologize because that's something I probably should have put out there sooner.
You know, part of the whole marketplace plans is that, you know, you're offering that to the employees
or the family members that don't have other options. If you're medically eligible, you'd have another
one. Yeah. Yeah. So.
was comparing what the district pays for employee and spouse now to what was on this sheet for the sample
employee. And I'm saying, oh, well, that's about the same or could be about the same, but the sample
employee sheet is only for the spouse. Well, right. Because we're assuming the other employee themselves
will get the Medicare. Right. From a budget perspective,
If the employee goes on Medicare, then, you know, what we have budgeted for that employee's insurance
purposes, you know, that makes a bigger dent on the spouse's marketplace. Say what? Well, I think the
budgeting isn't a part of it though. If the employee goes on Medicare, you know, but what we have budgeted
for that employee is the employee and spouse policy.
We're not putting anything towards that employee because they're on Medicare, right? So as far as budgeting,
right? You know what? The flip side of that is that Medicare is not wholly free, right? And they're
their costs are going to get. But a lot. Their personal because they will have Medicare, even though
you paid into it your whole life, it's still not free when you turn 65. It's not no. Sorry, I'm totally
naive on that. Yeah, and that's.
And that's what I was talking about, too, about if you've been eligible and not taking it, there are
different options open. And I don't know much about it, but it impacts what you cut. Oh, my goodness.
So many variables. Yeah. All right, good times. What's next? Jodi, any other comments or questions before
we move on?
Well, they're not saying it's time to talk about compactors. That's my Mr. Long is here. So I guess
I said last month that Joey has reached out to service providers and manufacturers and there don't seem
to be many people that want to do service agreements on a purchased piece of equipment.
No. So when I talk to them, basically they're going to charge us some calorie rate no matter what. And
they wouldn't give it to me because it could change. And there's no long-term service agreement and
a lot of them doesn't do like routine maintenance after their three-year plan. So it's just, it would
be parts of labor at our cost.
And the three-year plan would be the warranty period on the piece of equipment. And I do have that also.
It changes quite a bit in three years. So during the three-year warranty period, we would get some free
service? We would get personal area the first year, I believe what it is. Let me find that real fast.
It was parts of labor then the second year it would drop down to so much a percentage of the park and
percentage of labor. That was just the third year was we paid all of the labor and percentage of the
park. And nobody would give me any price because nobody can say what park is going to go down.
but after three years and this is this is on a purchased yes on purchase okay and then after three years
you're just like out of luck okay after three years we would be paying them for routine maintenance
or not routine maintenance they don't offer that any scheduled thing that we would need repaired would
be at a charge plus parts and so there would be no benefit
to having some kind of service agreement, because we would pay the same hourly rate in parts. Yeah.
Now, nobody actually sent me one. Again, it's kind of like we, I looked into what we currently have
through Evander and asked them what are the costs for this. They gave me the prize. They gave me a three
year service or three year warranty on that. Nobody would give me like a lease agreement, but some do
under lease.
Offer reaching maintenance like raising this idea. Preventative maintenance, but if they got to replace
a part and it's out of warranty. Yeah. And that's for leasing as well as or that just buying nobody
that's preventing maintenance. I've got a reason I don't say nobody. There might be somebody from but
the ones I've reached out to that we've currently dealt with didn't offer that. OK, so with leasing.
What is the leasing period before you can say, hey, I need a whole new one, please. The one that we
did talk to told us they don't like to go out seven years because at seven years, that's when stuff
starts to wear out. So every six to seven years, they want to replace them. So if you buy one, if you
go on that same thing, we're looking at six to seven years before we start having major repairs.
Placing it after six or seven years means we would just enter into a new service agreement. If we lease
it, yeah, we'd have to. Well, based on what that company said, we would enter into a new leasing agreement,
a new piece of equipment. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the current lease agreement, as far as 30 years old, they
just keep resigning the same lease. Yeah, but I mean, that's a bad deal. I mean, yeah, I'm not impressed.
Yeah, we've had one contractor down last week for three or four days before we could get it worked on.
So do you think that there's any benefit in purchasing these outright? If you're looking at a lifespan
of under 10 years, no.
They still build them like they used to. I mean, how realistic is the seven years? Is that just basically
they have to cover their bases? Well, again, that was a company that leases these things. So they probably
have set seven years as their point at which their costs to maintain the equipment start to impact the
cost benefit of leasing that piece of equipment.
Yeah, I think the fact that they would want to be changing out the container after seven years says
two things. First of all, yay for us. And second of all, that's probably, like you said, they're breaking
their switch over point for how it benefits them. So they've done the math. Well, it's probably
If that's their switching point, their cost-benefit analysis for the vendor who's leasing it, that probably
matches up to what it would be for us with the pain of having one down and calling them, whatever. I
can't remember if we've talked about this before, but I think a couple of times on our current equipment,
we have run into issues where it's old enough they can't find the part. I remember you talking about that.
We had one down for, I think, like, three months while they sent the part off to be completely rebuilt
and sent back to us. I would be so upset. This is not cool, man. I mean, we're leasing it, right? It's
not ours. Are you saying we should have replaced these years ago?
We're saying no, I'm saying that the company should under the lease by having equipment looking 24 seven
all the time. That's what that's why you lease, you know, well. So it was my impression that. It's not
possible to get a service where they take care of everything under the lease payments, right? You're
always going to pay something for them to come out well, and if you're paying something,
They should have an extra one in tow as they arrive to switch out while yours is down. That's one of
the problem is that they don't make parts for these things anymore. They can't. They can't have one
on the show because you can't go get it. Well, they can bring us a new one. I mean, it's like, yes,
I understand what you're saying. The car repair place gives you a loaner for the day and it happens
to be nicer than my car. Like yay for me! You know?
Sorry. Doing a loaner on one of these is quite an undertaking. Yes, I sure it is. I just have issues
apparently. No, I get what you're saying. I don't disagree with you, but this is not as simple as saying
here's the keys, we'll call you in your car. Everything should be that easy. So under the lease agreement,
we don't get the benefits of the warranty, right?
We don't get the year one, they pay for parts of labor, year two they pay for. Well, I didn't, again,
so with, so with leasing, we have a little bit more options on what the machine can do. And I'm sure
there's, with buying there is too, but with leasing, you know, we would have to sit down and figure
out what we want the contractor to do. Cause there's so much it will do now that ours has, is not capable
of that, you know, I'm sure they will put together, you know, based on what we're getting an agreement with,
you know, what's covered and not covered under the current lease agreement. And it may also depend on,
you know, are the units that were leasing brand new or are they a year old or, you know, where did,
you know, where did the, and some of this obviously it can be discussed and negotiated, you know,
you know, when you do an RFP or whatever. And, but, you know, where, where is the leasing company getting
the equipment from?
Is it brand new? Is it was it in service for a year to place the shutdown? I think I think I think these
things are the ones where people were talking to these things are made here. OK, that's good. I didn't
make it in the Midwest. That sounds like we need to. Explore these same options. And then you're you're thinking.
of, I can't remember how many to start, because it can be lovely because it's 15, but. Well, we'll need
to issue an RFP, because I want them all under one peace agreement, even if they're not in service at
the same time. The situation that we're in now is that they were not done under a bid RFP.
We're gonna put two in here and then we're gonna put two in over here and one in over here. So we need
to go look at the current leasing agreements and those terms and find out when they expire. I think
we'd have to give six months notice to terminate one of them. And I mean, they're all kind of in annual
one year renewal period, but once we enter that period, we're subject to that either 90 or
180 day termination notice.
And that's something that would have to be explained and built into the RFP that we want 15 units under
one lease. And, you know, and we're going to have two installed by this date, three installed by this
date. That's fun. Yeah, that's going to be complicated. So is that something you can work on the RFP? Yeah.
And it will be ready tomorrow. Should we vote on that as an executive committee to whether or not we
want them to go ahead and prepare an RFP for leasing? We talked about this with the full board. I don't know.
I don't know, it was the containers we talked about. I don't think that there's any miscellaneous action
needed by the executive committee. I'll check with legal. I honestly don't know. I think staff could
take it upon itself to issue a request for bid or request for proposal. If the board's unhappy with
it, you just reject everything when we bring it to you. I don't know that there's necessarily any requirement
legally for the board to direct staff to issue a request for bid or request for proposal. Obviously,
doing so gives the prospective bidders the assurance that, yep, they're serious about moving forward
with this. Well, wouldn't it be helpful to at least have the executive committee give the green light
for you to go ahead? And we don't have to do that with a formal bill. We could just do that.
We can make a second census thing, yeah. If that's the committee's wish. Now you're making it formal.
That's fine. I move that we authorize and encourage our staff to create an RFP that reflects the terms
or container flash compactor compactor replacement and maintenance that meets our future needs as they
see fit. Is there a second? I'll second. As chair, I try not to make much haste. I think I'm on that.
Any more discussion before we vote? Please call the roll. Yes. Yes. Yes. Motion passes unanimous.
All right. Could just give us an update at the next meeting whether you're ready with that or not ready
with it or just keep us in the loop. Please and thank you.
After I was just told, have fun with that. I was trying. Alright, next we have the Indiana Materials
Management Plan update. Yeah, so. I want to put it on there, but I had. I had a phone discussion with
Pamela Guerrero, who is with item.
is kind of in charge of all this implementing the SWFRA grants, capacity grants from the EPA that Adam
has. And this program did attend a webinar on the grant application process. We do have somebody from
IM scheduled to come to the associations conference in October.
to the grant application period will have expired by then, but to talk about, you know, developing your
plan and, you know, what the state's materials management plan is kind of directing localities to do
as they develop their plan, I guess would be a way to put it. But so at any rate, things are moving forward.
A snag that I have run into, because this is an EPA federal pass-through grant, you need a UEI number,
a unique entity identifier from the federal government, and a CAGE number, C-H-E-E, both from the federal
government, which the district has under its old name.
associated with employee names who I have no idea where they are or how to get a hold of. So I have
probably spent more time than I should trying to track that down and get them to acknowledge our name
change documentation. Interestingly enough, the federal government will not accept an acknowledgement
from the IRS of a name change.
They want it from the Secretary of State. We're not required to register with the Secretary of State
because we're a government entity. So that's been a round and round process. It was mentioned at the
last board meeting, or I guess question, do we need funding assistance? We wrote our last plan update
on our own. So one thing that didn't come out
And the grant application process was a timeline where the grant applications are due September the
14th. I didn't expect to make an award of the grant. I think December the 15th. And then was looking
at an 18 month implementation window. Wait a minute. The grants are due on the 14th and item.
We'll make awards the next day, December 5th, December. OK, maybe I'm sorry. Maybe I left December.
I was like, well, don't put a whole lot of effort and they're clearly not going to. But you know, but
given given that we're from where we are today, looking at basically a 20 month window for the district
to develop.
the board to approve and to start implementing aspects of the materials management plan, I don't know
that we need something. Or if we do, it might be for bits and pieces over here as we get into actually
developing the plan and instead of pursuing $20,000 grant that's gonna require $20,000 of matching funds
or in-kind contributions,
you know, we should, we could start working on this on our own and then, you know, oh, we need help
here. So for $5,000, we can get that done. You know. It's so frustrating that like the presentation
that item is going to give at the association conference is until October and yet the grant application
is September. So we don't really know what they want yet, right?
No, no, they do. That's me. And that's and that's there was a webinar. Even a week and a half ago now
on the grant application process, kind of that I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about. Do we
understand what's needed for the new plan? Yeah, there's yeah, there's a very good general idea because
the state has issued their materials management plan and and your local plan.
is supposed to incorporate the goals and objectives of the state plan at a local level with more detail
about what you're going to do locally to actually achieve those. The state doesn't really get into how
we're going to achieve this stuff. They left that to the local. So incorporate the goals of the state
plan and explain how we're going to achieve them. Yeah. So they're going to, in October,
And then I said that, you know, they're what they said at the webinar regarding the application process
was that it was December 14 or 15. They plan to announce awards. And then at that point, there's an
18, they're looking at an 18 month timeline.
option and implementation exactly for ones that are using grant money or is that like is there an expectation
of a timeline here not in the grant cycle that wasn't specified but i don't know how they can give put
a different expectation on somebody just because they did or didn't receive funding yeah so probably
we're looking i mean if the deadline for implementation is june 1st 2028 but that's what it is it doesn't really
Well, it could be that the funding cycle is an 18 month. It's an 18 month grant. No, they said they
said implementation adoption and that's 18 months to adoption and implementation. That was the word
from December 15th. Yeah, they said grant award. Semper 15. And then 18 months. For adoption
and implementation. And what does implementation mean?
Well, if your plan says that, you know, by such and such a date, you know, we're gonna open a public
composting facility. So, well, you need to at least have the plan in place for what the timeline established
for here's the steps to get that facility opened and when we expect it to be open. Doesn't mean it needs
to be open at 18 months. That just means you need to start putting into place or to practice
what you outlined is gonna take to get that facility open. Am I making sense? Yeah, I mean, it seems
kind of subjective. I just- Yes, this is how it all is with them. It just drives me crazy that, so they're
giving $20,000 grants so that we can do a bunch of paperwork for them instead of giving us $20,000 to
actually reduce waste. Yeah, and there has been some,
I guess right being heartache over that, that they're, you know, the, the, the Swiffer grant funds and
what are eligible expenses under those funds. It's basically here's, here's money to hire a consultant
to do this for you. That's basically what it is. Oh yeah. You can't, you can't take this money to go
buy, you know, a compactor or, or, or a windrow turner for the compost facility. This is the Swiffer.
That's the federal.
I don't know if the Swiffer. I thought it was something to clean floors. Solid waste infrastructure.
Solid waste infrastructure for recycling. That's what SWIFR stands for.
And that's something that later opportunities to apply for money. Well, there will. This is
an EPA pass-through grant that is doing federal funds available. This has, you know, this to my knowledge,
this isn't going to have any impact or change anything with regard to the annual waste tire grants,
recycling market development grants and stuff that IDEM is already doing every year.
You know, but so if you had this plan in place, you know, with a stated goal and the process to achieve
that goal that requires purchasing equipment or something, then you go pursue one of those annual grants
that they do every year and say, hey, we want help doing this. It has to be in the plan. It has to be.
Yeah, because private entities are eligible for some of those grants, too.
But having the MMP in place with, here's our goal, here's our process, we need to buy this. And it's
a one-for-one match? Is that what you were talking about? Oh, right, yeah. The recycling market, that
I have to look at. Oh, the SWIFT program? Yeah, I have to look. I don't know that it was exactly, because
I think it can be cash or in kind or in combination.
Does it have to be, you said 20,000, does it have to? That's the maximum. Maximum. So we could do a
10,000. We could. Or a 5,000. And just pull in someone to facilitate or. And that's the other, you know,
the other thing in all of this is, you know, there's 72 solid waste districts. How many counties, 72 counties?
92. How many municipalities? A lot. Every one of them is eligible for this grant. If they give out $20,000
grants, they have enough money for 18. And we have two weeks.
Yeah, I just don't think it's worth. We had like five weeks from when all this was announced, but I
got stuck in this loop trying to figure out this UI and cage. So my my my thought is that we don't put
effort into this grant right now. It seems as though. If we've done this before and our budget is such
that if we needed something, we can probably find alternatives.
I agree that I don't I. But I would, of course, I'm tired of banging my head against the wall with the
federal government. Unfortunately, I would encourage you to continue. I know we need that effort. It
is something that those numbers in place for future purposes that would make sense to get figured out,
but not under time. Right? Yeah, I agree with Kate. I don't think it's worse trying to scramble to get
this grant application in.
Yeah, I agree. I think that's it's it's too much of a time crunch and too much to. Too much to do in
a short period of time to ensure it's done right and they're giving us adequate time to develop a plan
and get things supplemented and we we've done before. I can delegate to Joey again, is it?
Is it substantially, are there substantially different requirements from the plan that you've done before?
Yes and no. It's written from a different perspective. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, because
the Materials Management Plan really places a focus and an emphasis
on dealing with organics and waste diversion and reuse. I like the MMP better than I like the solid
waste management plan the state had that we've had before with regard to trying to pursue our mission.
So in that sense, it's different.
You know, as far as outlining what you're going to do to help the state achieve this 50% recycling goal,
you know, to divert organics from the waste stream. That's the same. Okay. Jodi, are you in agreement
that it's not worth pursuing the grant? Sorry. Yes, I was blowing my nose and I had a bit of a nosebleed.
Yes, I agree with that.
Yeah, I think it takes a lot of resources and it's a short turnaround. All right. Unfortunately, I would
have liked to. I mean, I love the idea. I always love the idea of more money. Yeah. I think the consultant
lobby, they have had something to do with. Well, I have also spoken with the company that
develop the state's plan. Wanting to know, we wanted help with our plan. Yeah, I'm sure they're reaching
out to everybody. Funny how they're thinking. All righty. So next we have all other items deemed appropriate
for Executive Committee deliberation. Is there anything else? Don did have
An idea for presenting claims. To the board, it would be a little more similar to go through for the
board to go through and in essence would be one document that would list all of the claims. In the board
packet, which would reduce.
the amount of pages that that is in the packet. Jody, I'm sorry. I don't know if you can. I can photograph
it. That's good. John put this together as an example, and I think he and I talked and both realized that
It might not have all the information that you would want in here, but this is a simple spreadsheet.
We can add rows and columns. It's a starting point. Yeah. If it's something that you think would work
for the board, then let us know what additional information for a claim. Do you want the description
that you see? Yeah. Do you want to see invoice numbers?
Do you know, do you want us? It's just, you know, what type of additional information would you want
in there? If this is something we want to see if the board wants to use. I think it would be really
helpful to indicate which ones were approved. Resolution and board by under resolution 22.
Whatever it is, that could be done. I figured I'll just list everything in the starting point and we
can talk about it and make it better. Yeah, because that way, like since I approved the weekly emails,
I can just. Focus on the ones that I have not looked at yet. Or, you know, and maybe we. Color coding
color coding or or we could we could break it into two. Here's the board approved claims.
Here's the resolution of route times. That would be very easy to do. That would probably be the best,
yeah. And you like this nonsense. And maybe, I mean, if there's a category that's already in place rather
than an explanation, I don't know which is easier. Because I don't need to know exactly what you bought
at Kleindorfers, but you know. Yeah, I mean, the category that we would have would be the name or description
of the budget line.
that it was paid too much. But in some cases, there's going to be other professional services or other
supplies. You know, gas, water, and electric are pretty cut and dry. But some of the other things get
a little broad and general in their description.
If you like the concept, we can see when we process the claims, it can be done at that time. And this
was done really quickly to get something so you can kind of look at it in the concept. But if you like
the concept, then the spreadsheet could be done as we go along with each claim like we know.
Certain things are in certain categories that that's when we that's what I was doing. It wouldn't take
all that much additional time to make this up as we go along and then it would be in the different categories
that you would like. So. So I remember what I was going to say. So I think we should add a column. With
either invoice number or a docket number or something so that if.
A board member says, I want to know more about this sound management LLC on eight seven. Then you would
have a number to look up that item and I'll squeeze as many things as I can. Now we can do it in landscape
rather than in portrait is that way there would be more. There's more things we could get in the column.
Do you need an invoice number to look this up?
look up if someone wanted to? Is that like the single point of differentiation? I think the system makes
us put an invoice number in, because that's how it helps to track. It won't let you pay the same invoice
number twice. It's not built in safe.
John and I have talked, and I think if he becomes more settled in and more familiar with everything,
I don't think that we have so many claims in a given month that if you ask me what it is, somebody should
be able to tell you. We don't need to go look it up. We don't have thousands of claims a month. $1.74 at wonky?
That's for illegal dumping. And I don't quite understand this, but they've told me, the staff have told
me that when there's a legal dumping, somebody has to go pick it up. And then Romkey, I don't mean the
staff has to go pick it up, Romkey has to go pick it up. And then they charge us for that. That's what
our compliance department does. And then Romkey, you know,
Again, $50 a ton is their rate, and we take 100 pounds against the scale. They prorate it all the way
down to 100 pounds. That's awesome. I love it. I know that... Don't try again. I know that a lot can
be a bit difficult to interpret and read, so that's why I thought of something like this, because I
use this type of approach in my other
So I know being able to see information at a glance and interpret it in a way that is very double and
you can't really do that without too many things you have to look through. The other part of that too,
even if we needed an invoice number, we're not going to be able to look that up for you at the board
meeting because I can't remotely access the accounting software. Okay. Pack right rentals.
This is what you like to see and that's for. Well, and I'll write it down and we'll get this going for
you. Okay. And what's number? Well, actually, Tom has dissuaded us from. Yeah, I guess when I asked
you about what should be on here, don't think about it from.
Staff, what's going to help the board? It's the questions like this. Like, what are you spending? It's
curious. I don't know if I need to know this, but for one thing, what does that date mean? We need to
put headings on there. Yeah. Does that mean the date was paid? But that's one thing. And we do,
you know, and what you're used to seeing and we can
We need to add on here, you know, are those brief notes or descriptions about, you know, here I'll help
you out, curing environmental and smoke detectors. You said $700 on smoke detectors? Yeah, that's for
about $600 of them. So you like all the cons that are there? I think we bought six containers. We average
$100 per container. And that's the container and the recycling fees and shipping.
for all six. So we can we can add those and those are on those little types of descriptions are on the
current dockets. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Great. I think adding a description of exactly what it was description
of what it is. Yeah. Yeah, but it's not limited liability. I don't know.
The work syntax limited liability. So that's for sharks container. That's kind of get rid of our bar.
Sure. And just showing some leverage. We're just into a squeeze package about we've sent talks. See,
this is going to be such a great learning experience. I love it because I would ask about every single
one except that
I try not to be myself. Most most if not all of this stuff is already there. It's just it's just this
is much easier to go through and ask questions than all the individual docket sheets that are, you know,
they have much smaller print. And well, and that's another thing. So the German American line that's
going to have any credit card payments, right?
How much is that one for? $108.06. Yeah, that's the credit card fees that German-American charges for
us having credit cards. Yeah, that's the processing fees. The processing fees. For how, for a month?
For a month, yes. Why? We pay $198 a month for using a credit card? See, that's why at our Home Office
Association we don't offer credit cards, because I was
I know there's going to be all these feet and I said, no, we'll just say credit card. That was all we
don't take credit cards. I'll look at that. Yeah, check that out. The business has no choice really
but to take credit cards. That seems like a lot. Well, I thought they wouldn't have to, but then there
wouldn't get as much business either. And then if we're going to move to this, then you know,
The question that John said, that he can do this every time. We can do this weekly, right? Yeah, we
can do it every time. We place the docket sheets that you're currently seeing, if that's what you want
to do. Is this in an Excel spreadsheet? No, but does this require you to retype everything? Well, let
me put it this way. That is what I did for this,
August, and to do another one for September, we would have to retype all these every month, because
the spreadsheet isn't going to be just a generic one that we use and re-change as we go through it.
But maybe we could do it that way, but I think it would be easier to just do it every month as a separate
spreadsheet, and then we would save it. Well, you could do sheets with an Excel. I can also show John, too.
you can take the bundles that you're used to seeing and you can export those into a spreadsheet and
then you can just start copying and pasting and deleting headings that are in there that you don't need
because it will be multiple headings that confused you. I tried to understand. So yeah, I'm just concerned
of human error and you know with the numbers. So if there's a way to
import from or export from there's ways to. Yeah, I know, John. And we can also nature that we can also
set the spreadsheets to automatic, you know, to automatically some whatever's put in and then you just
match. Does this match well okay then.
So you don't have to help anybody. I don't claim to be an expert at Microsoft Excel. I know the basic
Excel when I did that on Excel and I added it up on Excel and put it in the cell, but I don't plan to
be in the advanced level, so some of that stuff I just don't know how to do. I don't think we need pivot
tables. No, John, we can. We can talk about, you know, all of this,
What sounds complicated now is once you set the spreadsheet up once, you're done. Then you just delete
the data and put the new data in. Oh, okay. Well, I would save it for months to come. You make your
copy and then you delete everything out and then put it on the newspaper. But I'm delighted that you
even considered letting me do that because I felt that you could, just like right now, you didn't know
before the German-American charges, almost $200.
The credit card, and now you can read it on your hands. I understand things. I appreciate it. Something
else you're in American Charges for that you'll see on the record is a $40 processing fee, and I'm not
really sure what that is. It's a treasury management fee. Never really understood exactly what it is,
because the previous bank didn't do it, but the previous bank wasn't giving us thousands of dollars
in interest every month.
So it's 40 bucks to gain 10,000. That's fine with me. OK, yeah. Alright, I would like to wrap up this
meeting as we all have other things to get to you. But thank you John and we will go forward with this.
Yeah, thank you. We'll play with it and get the extra information set up and we'll try to just put together
a template that you can just put the information in.
I mean, I don't claim to be an expert on that, so I don't have to. So we'll get all that. Any other
items from directors or board meeting? I don't have any. So I don't think we need to have a September
board meeting or regular meeting time conflicts with county budget hearings. Is there anything urgent
coming up, Tom?
No, I mean, I mean, there's nothing on this agenda other than the board minutes that would be forwarded
to the board. In a normal circumstance, I will. As you all know that today. I got the documents we need
for that utilities resolution. Oh, by the way, they can wait a little bit. We sure waited. Yeah. Yeah.
And I told I go ahead and told them, thanks. And the board, I will have this on the agenda for the October
board meeting. Cool.
All right, so maybe we should take an official action to cancel. I move that we cancel the September
board meeting. Second. All right, Jodi, if you could come off camera to vote. One moment. Oh, that was
a little bleeding. Sorry. Sorry. You're fine. There we go.
All right, can you call the roll please, Tom? Yes. Yes. Well, yep. Motion passes unanimously. Okay,
thank you. Cancelation notice. It'll probably be Thursday, but I'm out of the office tomorrow. So we'll
get a cancellation notice. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you. I don't think.
You say, that's my thing. We are jerk.