Landfill board gets second chance at SLIB grant

The Upper Platte Valley Solid Waste District (Landfill Board) may get help with converting the landfill to a transfer station.

Randy Raymer said there is a movement to remove GAAP (General Accepted Accounting Priniciples) requirement tied with applying for a SLIB (State Land Investment Boards) grant. One of the reasons the Landfill Board was denied the grant in May was because they did not use GAAP accounting.

Even if the movement goes forward, it would take a year before the landfill board could be approved for a SLIB grant to transfer station.

However, the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is providing a certified public accountant (CPA) to help get the landfill board GAAP qualified. Raymer said he is optimistic they will be GAAP qualified by the next SLIB meeting June 19.

“Potentially we can get our grant approval and take off on our design and bidding and stuff like that so we can start building our transfer station,” Raymer said.

The DEQ is paying for the entire cost of the CPAs.

If the Landfill Board does not become GAAP qualified by the June meeting, they would have to wait until the next meeting on Oct. 17. By then, the landfill board would have to resubmit the application for the SLIB grant.

The recent movement to get the Platte Valley qualified came after Wyoming Governor Matt Mead had reportedly placed pressure on the board after nine out of 10 municipalities were denied the SLIB grants last month—most of which were due to not using GAAP accounting.

Raymer said the requiring GAAP accounting to be used to apply for the grant is not a practical. Out of the 99 municipalities in Wyoming, only 17 of them have the resources available to apply GAAP accounting.

“That means 82 (municipalities) have populations less than 4,000,” Landfill Board member Leroy Stephenson said. “And I guarantee you, out of those 82 municipalities, very few of them have it in their budget to use GAAP accounting.”

The landfill board also elected to become an official party of the Industrial Siting Council permitting process for the Power Company of Wyoming.

Board member Sue Jones said it gives the board the right to speak at the Industrial Siting Council meetings, requires the council to ask for the landfill board’s input on decision and permission to use the landfill board’s facilities.

“I don’t think they say much about their waste,” Jones said.

Raymer said they are seeing impacts in the landfill from the refinery workers as well.

The next meeting will be at 7 p.m. on July 2 at the Encampment Library.

 

Reader Comments(0)

 
 
Rendered 03/06/2024 19:42