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Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Ind. Law - "Re-evaluation of all Indiana solid waste management districts sought"
Bob Kasarda reports today in the NWI Times in a long story that begins:
Twenty years after sponsoring legislation creating solid waste management districts in Indiana, state Sen. Beverly Gard, R-Greenfield, has some big concerns with the size and approach of the operations that have taken shape in Lake County."They are totally out of control," she said.
Gard is calling for a statewide re-evaluation of the recycling districts to be undertaken by an interim study committee next summer.
Gard, who chairs the Senate Energy and Environmental Affairs Committee, said the local solid waste districts were created with the goal of reducing the amount of garbage headed to landfills at a time when disposal space was critically low. She said she intended for the districts to facilitate recycling, which was a fledgling effort at the time, and to carry out education on waste reduction.
She said she never envisioned a district growing as large and as wealthy as the one in Lake County.
The Lake County Solid Waste Management District is the largest of the 70 districts across the state, in terms of its nearly $5.2 million annual budget. That cash is generated mostly by a property tax, according to Lance Hodge, executive director of the Association of Indiana Solid Waste Management Districts.
Marion County, which already had a system in place decades ago, was not required to form a solid waste district, according to the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.
The Lake County district has eight full-time employees, including a full-time attorney paid $84,437 a year, said Executive Director Jeff Langbehn, who receives an annual salary of $102,129 and a take-home vehicle.
He defended his salary by pointing out he is an attorney and has 20 years of experience.
The Porter County district, by comparison, operates with a budget of $900,147, generated mostly by an annual fee of $13 per household. It has six full-time and four part-time employees, and a director who is paid $60,075 and afforded a take-home vehicle.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 6, 2009 12:44 PM
Posted to Indiana Law