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Court Also Passes Slight Decrease In Property Tax Rates  Madison Doyle, story: Judge Executive Wil Cannon invited new Scott Waste Site Manager, Sam Upperman, to speak at today's fiscal court meeting on August 22, 2022. Upperman said today that former District Manager Pete Reckard, who was normally the one slated to address multiple complaints in local county fiscal court sessions, was no longer with the company. Upperman said he wanted to make the court aware of the changes that are being made within the company to ensure that the people of Edmonson County can become satisfied with Scott Waste. "First of all I want to say we've already been here and apologized, and all of the excuses you have heard so far are not your problem," Upperman stated. "As of last week you guys should have already been seeing improvements, and I called Judge Cannon to ask if his office had received anymore complaints and he said there were none. That's the expectation going forward, and it should have been this whole time." Judge Cannon then asked Upperman to explain everything that has been done to improve the services, and how it will continue to improve. Upperman said first, he personally swapped some drivers around so that different drivers would be taking the Edmonson County routes, and second, they put better trucks in the area to reduce the possibility of a breakdown, and said the company just received five brand new trucks. Upperman also stated that within the past four weeks, they have hired eight new people they are training right now, creating a "bench" so that if a regular driver gets injured, sick, etc., someone can be pulled up and take their place. Upperman told the magistrates and Judge Cannon that if they receive any complaints at all, to forward those directly to him, and that he would personally see that the people of Edmonson County's needs were met. Trey Holman, Operations Supervisor of Scott Waste, also apologized for the excuses previously made and said those excuses should no longer exist. He also told the magistrates and Judge Cannon they could forward any complaints directly to them. Both Upperman and Holman left their business cards for the magistrates to have all of their contact information. A representative from Green River Management, Dave Jolley, also attended today's meeting. Judge Cannon opened the floor for him to speak, and he said that Green River Management does 80-90% of the trash pick up in Butler County. Judge Cannon then asked the magistrates if they had any questions for Jolley, and they had none. "What I would like to do is keep what we have, at the price rates we have, but we can only do that if you all [Scott Waste] continue to improve," said Judge Cannon. "What I would like to do is have a meeting with you guys and our magistrates at the first of November to see if these changes keep happening, and if they don't, we will be forced to go another way." Judge Cannon also referenced that he saw on the recent Edmonson Voice survey that the majority of Scott Waste customers were not satisfied with their trash service, and he said he hopes that will change soon with the changes being implemented in the company. In that survey from last week, only 20% of county residents polled said they were completely satisfied with Scott Waste. An evaluation meeting with Scott Waste was set for November 8, 2022, so the court can decide if the changes the company has implemented are truly working. The county agreed to hold off on deciding on additional trash collection options until then and no other action is being taken at this time.   The court also voted to set tax rates from 13.8 cents per 100 dollar value, to 13.7 cents per 100 value, which is a decrease from the past two years. Judge Cannon said they have been working towards this decrease in order to allow for inflation and get caught up with some other things they needed to take care of. "We are in okay financial shape, we aren't exactly where we would like to be but we are okay," he said. "I know this will take us in the right direction."
All other tax rates will be the same as they have been for the last several years, with 19.5 of tangible property, 17.1 of motor vehicles, 19.5 inventory, 19.5 watercraft, 19.5 aircraft, and 20 on bank shares. The vote was unanimous. In addition to this, the court also voted to:
The next fiscal court meeting will be held on September 12, 2022, at 9 am.
1 Comment
Bob Strakusek
8/22/2022 06:51:44 pm
The changes Scott has made and will continue to make, will hopefully drastically improve their service. My concern is the measurement of that improvement. I’ve said it a number of times here and on other social platforms that you can’t determine success without objective measurements in place. I would suggest doing a second survey just prior to the November meeting. You’ve done one that establishes a baseline. The second will objectively measure success. At least to some degree. There are better ways, i.e., build performance standards into the contract. But in the absence of that, the survey is a fair tool. Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
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