Encampment appeals to UPRSWDD

Town of Encampment asks landfill district to keep billing with municipalities

Over the past several months, a large part of discussion at meetings of the Upper Platte River Solid Waste Disposal District (UPRSWDD) has centered around consolidated billing. The discussion began in the spring of 2019 and culminated in the UPRSWDD presenting one-year contracts to the Town of Saratoga, the Town of Encampment and the Town of Riverside before the end of their fiscal years.

Since then, the district has appeared to be moving toward their goal. 

At the January 8 meeting of the UPRSWDD, however, Town of Encampment Clerk Doreen Harvey and Encampment mayor Greg Salisbury requested the district reconsider taking the billing from the Town of Encampment.

“I’m a day late and a dollar short, evidently. I didn’t realize you guys were to this point in this process. I thought we still had time to make an argument of why we believe this billing process should be left to the communities,” said Harvey. “Nobody knows your residents as good as your town hall clerks. They know the people moving in, the people moving out, construction, demolition. We’re the face of the landfill district.”

Harvey added that, as Encampment town clerk, she knew which accounts had paid ahead, which were delinquent and which had liens placed on their property.

“When landfill is delinquent, we’re taking that and we’re marrying that with our leinable things like water and sewer. We’re doing all the collection of it. We guarantee you 100 percent collection. There is just 20 different reasons I can think of that this billing should stay with the communities,” Harvey said. “There are just a number of things that come to my mind and I’m just surprised, hearing your discussion about going out to bid or if you’re going to have a contractor, that we’re at this point. The communities themselves, either there hasn’t been enough information in the minutes or nobody’s come to say, ‘Hey, this is serious. This is really going to happen.’”

UPRSWDD Chairman Randy Raymer apologized to Harvey for not having a representative of the landfill district communicate with the Town of Encampment. Raymer added that both the Town of Encampment and the Town of Riverside were not at issue with the UPRSWDD board.

“Riverside and Encampment do an excellent job. We couldn’t ask for anymore,” said Raymer. “We have, in the down Valley, a very significant problem with billing, cash management, turnover of revenue. It’s very serious.”

Harvey, in response, asked Raymer why the UPRSWDD couldn’t work with the Town of Saratoga while the municipality worked on examining its financials. 

“I understand there are discrepancies in those books and I understand, per the terms of the contract, you guys have the right to get to the bottom of those discrepancies to your satisfaction,” said Harvey. “You come to my town hall, I can print you a billing journal and a collection journal and an aging document that should give you an excellent picture of where we stand. I believe every town hall has ... the obligation to provide that to you.”

As discussion continued, UPRSWDD representative Sue Jones stated that the district going with the municipalities was, historically, the best way to approach the billing. Jones informed Harvey and Salisbury of a recent attempt by the Town of Saratoga to terminate the lease it had with the UPRSWDD.

“The mayor … in Saratoga, he wanted to cut it off this month, the contract, and not do it anymore. I’m sure he’s got the votes to do that,” said Jones.

In correspondence provided to the Saratoga Sun, Tom Thompson, legal counsel for the Town of Saratoga, emailed Raymer in October requesting a “mutual termination of the Agreement between the Town and URPSWDD” with a suggested termination date of January 1, 2020. The district denied the Town of Saratoga’s request in November.

Late in 2019, the district also made requests for the records of landfill users maintained by the Town of Saratoga. According to Raymer, as members of the UPRSWDD board have gone through the records, they have found a number of inconsistencies.

“As we have finally edged our way into some of these user lists there are dead people on that list, there are people that don’t live in town anymore, there are people that the commercial operators have put on the list repeatedly that continue to disappear off the list,” said Raymer.

Raymer informed Harvey and Salisbury that the Town of Saratoga was not the only catalyst for the UPRSWDD to pursue consolidated billing. He stated that there were several large ranches in the Valley who had accounts with all three municipalities, which was confusing for both the ranches and the district.

“They’re having trouble tracking it and we’re having tracking it. One of the hopes that we had was by putting it under one billing system we would be able to gather it all in so that we had a one picture shot of what’s going on,” Raymer said.

Following continued discussion, in which a number of suggestions were made including the Town of Encampment taking over the Town of Saratoga’s billing for landfill, a motion was made. The UPRSWDD voted unanimously to pursue a new billing program only with current Town of Saratoga accounts and ranch accounts. The landfill district will allow the Town of Encampment and the Town of Riverside to continue billing for their respective accounts.

The next meeting of the Upper Platte River Solid Waste Disposal District will be at 7 p.m. on February 5 at Saratoga Town Hall.

 

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