Creation of Refuse District Manager position delayed

Work continues to finalize a job description for the newly created position of Valley County Refuse District Manager.

During a meeting on April 7, the three county commissioners spoke at length with representatives from the Valley County Refuse Board about the job description, which must be finalized before the position is advertised to the public.

Brian Austin, Valley County Landfill manager, would need to reapply for the newly created position, and would face competition should other candidates apply as well.

The commissioners voted to table a final version of the description until after the Refuse Board meets on April 20 to iron out the details.

“I think the biggest problem, and I’m not on the board I am just the manager, but I think some of the major issues with why the board hasn’t addressed it is because we haven’t come up with a tried and true assessment system yet,” said Brian Austin, Valley County Landfill manager. “The board is not sure exactly where to put their feet” to move forward. “The commission, nor the refuse board, has come up with a solid plan to how they want to address that.”

The creation of refuse district manager follows an official audit which found no one had been charging or collecting outstanding debts for refuse removal from The Fort Peck Tribes since at least the late 1990s.

“It is somewhere between $500,000 and $800,000 we didn’t get there because it wasn’t anybody’s job,” said Commissioner John Fahlgren. “So, all we are trying to do is put it down that it is your job to do, and it’s your job as the [refuse] board, it’s your job as the manager of the refuse district. So, we are not trying to take over and micromanage, but we recognize the issue needs to be dealt with, and it seems like having a good job description puts that in the manager’s bailey to cover.”

According to the Refuse District Audit, there are numerous errors in the assessment fees on property tax statements including no assessment on eligible properties and, or, assessments that do not accurately reflect current levels of waste generated. The current assessment fee schedule relies on the trash hauler to identify the level of solid waste generated by commercial and government entities in the city of Glasgow only. As such, no evaluation of solid waste volumes is performed currently for commercial or government properties outside city limits.

“We do need to get it fixed because currently we’ve got a lack of fairness to the people out there paying for the refuse district,” said Commissioner Mary Armstrong. “It is not a fair and equitable system right now, and we need to take steps to get it moving towards being fair and equitable.”

Armstrong said the commissioners began looking into the matter in January.

“We’ve been at this a while and I think, at least from my standpoint, we need to move forward,” she said. “We haven’t heard from the [refuse] board what actions you are going to take to get this assessment fixed.”

The commissioners presented a proposed draft of the job description during the April 7 meeting, and had been set to vote on the document before objections from the refuse board members in attendance.

The draft description listed the essential functions of the position as including the development and maintenance of financial reports, an annual budget, capital improvements and replacement plans. The current job description does not include language specifying the responsibility for such duties.

Additionally, the manager would be responsible for updating assessments as needed to accurately reflect the county commercial, residential, agricultural, Tribal and government usage of landfill and container sites. The description also notes the position would work both in the field and in an office setting.