There may be hope for the Solid Waste Budget

The County Commission convened on Monday, October 19th at the Courthouse. After appointing a new commissioner, they moved on to the scheduled reports from the County Mayor, Director of Schools, Chamber of Commerce, etc.

County Mayor Report

General Fund

County Mayor Jonah Keltner took the podium as Commissioner Peery took the mayor’s place. Mayor Keltner presented trial balance sheets for this year as well as for the past five years, showing the county’s General Fund Balance.

“I know some of you are pretty concerned and worried about our General Fund Balance,” said Mayor Keltner. “But we’re actually doing better than what the previous five-year average is, which is $910,154.”

Mayor Keltner also added that the money that had been spent was funded by Grant Money, and very little had be used from local tax dollars.

“So while we started this fiscal year with around $1,390,000 in the General Fund Account... based on our budget and current projections and spending, that should be around $1,330,000 when we start our next year,” Mayor Keltner said. “That’s only a decrease of $60,000 and it is due to the Airport Runway Project.”

Solid Waste Budget

While Mayor Keltner had good news for the General Fund, he had to ring the warning bells for the Solid Waste Account once again.

“Where we really need to be concerned and focused is in our Solid Waste Budget. As I’ve been warning everyone since last December... [the budget] is in pretty bad shape.”

As of now the Solid Waste Budget has only $76,360, which is a little over half of $130,605 or what the five-year average has been for Solid Waste.

“As a matter of fact,” said the mayor, “that account has been so low, that for the past two weeks we’ve been unable to pay our $30,000 garbage bill for September to Waste Haulers.”

However, the report was not all doom and gloom. The new cardboard recycling program involving Solid Waste Director, Bradley Loveless and 53 businesses around the County has added over $3,000 to the budget in just one week.

Mayor Keltner then gave a list with thirteen steps as to how the county, along with Loveless, have built and will continue to build, the Solid Waste Budget.

1. Aggressively pursue delinquent Solid Waste fee collections.

2. Changed management at the Transfer Station.

3. Promoted, encouraged and increased all types of recycling.

4. Kept pit material out of the household garbage trailers.

5. Utilized the “American Jobs Center” Dislocated and Youth Worker Program.

6. Used inmate labor when available.

7. Reduced the number of county garbage pick-up sites by twenty percent.

8. Implemented a County-wide cardboard recycling program.

9. Visited and called other transfer stations to learn from them.

10. Purchased scales and started charging for pit material.

11. Partnered with other local government agencies to borrow equipment and use their manpower.

12. Started taking better care of our equipment and vehicles at the transfer station.

13. Carefully studying long-term solutions to our solid waste problems.

“Please spread the word to the public about those things we’ve done, so they don’t just think the County has increased their fees without seeking and doing other options to help with our budgeting problems,” said Mayor Keltner.

Director of Schools

Director of Schools, Benny Pace could not make it to Monday night’s meeting due to not feeling well. So Allen Trull, Supervisor of Student and Support Services, took his place and presented the numbers for Mr. Pace.

Trull reported that the Lewis County System had received 2,860,806.15 in funding for the General Purpose School Fund for the period of July 1 through September 30, 2020. Of that money, $2,085,583.71 had been used. The biggest expenditures being for Regular Instruction, Board of Education, Office of Principal and Operation of plant.

The Federal Projects School Fund had received $292,009.59 in funding from the state, CARES Act Grant and others. The total expenditure for this account was $200,278.29.

The school system also received $177,315.80 for the School Food Service budget, and spent $134,605.13 from this fund. Trull also announced that this means the free lunch will continue until the end of June.

Chamber of Commerce

Debbie Landers, Director of the Chamber of Commerce and newly appointed Director of Nashville’s Big Yard, was proud to announce that the website and other data analytics had come back in.

The project has had approximately 500,000,000 total impressions through (social and written) media, which means that the story and video had been viewed by that amount of people.

Hohenwald has also been added to the project’s website. From that website, Hohenwald has had 575 direct hits, meaning that 575 had clicked on our town!

Landers also addressed concerns and fears of Hohenwald being overrun with people once the project had gotten so much attention.

“[The project is] about us, but it’s also about regional economic community development,” said Landers. “To give an example, Davidson County gained ten more percent before their population increase hit its max... So if you take that and apply it to Perry County, a ten percent growth would be 800 people. There is plenty of room here for 800 people.”

Bid for Repeater Repairs Accepted

Commissioner Timmie Hinson brought up repairs needed to fix the repeater that was struck by lightening last month. Danny Atkinson, the EMA Director, was not able to be at the meeting, but the Sheriff made it apparent that there had been a bid for the repairs needed.

Commissioner Ronnie Brewer motioned to go ahead and accept the bid, and Commissioner Ragsdale seconded the motion. The bid was unanimously accepted.

All other reports mentioned were unanimously accepted by the commission.