We Are Improving!

We hope that you'll find our new look appealing and the site easier to navigate than before. Please pardon any 404's that you may see, we're trying to tidy those up!  Should you find yourself on a 404 page please use the search feature in the navigation bar.  

Star InactiveStar InactiveStar InactiveStar InactiveStar Inactive
 

Officials from Unity of the Carolinas and Halifax County will discuss a proposed increase in the refuse-hauling company’s contract due to rising fuel costs.

The change in the county’s contract with the company would represent a $150,897 increase, according to documentation Unity provided in preparation for Monday’s board meeting.

County Manager Dia Denton said prior to a public hearing on the county’s proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year the contract increase was one of two matters which could change the proposed financial plan. There were no speakers on the budget.

Commissioner Patrick Qualls made a motion which directed county management and the public utilities department to work through “what is fair to the county with (Unity).”

However, Qualls said, whatever is agreed upon by the parties “has to work up and down for me to approve it. I’m not going to approve a rate that’s inflated because of fuel at this price. Fuel’s going to come down.”

Bruce Bates, president of Unity, said he arrived at the $150,897 figure based upon the time the company entered a contract with the county. 

Under the proposal the fuel adjustment would affect the following fees:

The yearly collection fee would go from $137.15 to $143.51 — a $6.36 increase

The yearly disposal fee would go from $53.66 to $55.26 — a $1.60 increase

The yearly availability fee would go from $47.62 to $47.89 — a 27-cents increase

The total household solid waste fee increase would be $8.23 per year.

The transfer station tipping fee would go from $65.06 to $66.83 — a $1.77 increase

Those fees were calculated to arrive at a $150,897 contract increase, which represents $117,807 in the household fee increase and a total tipping fee increase of $33,090. 

Bates also submitted a bill which showed last month the company paid $40,891.53 for 7,568 gallons of diesel fuel. The unit price, according to the May 27 invoice, was $4.6757 per gallon. Included in the grand total were freight charges, a pump out charge, a federal diesel tax, a state diesel tax, a Leaking Underground Storage Tank Trust Fund tax, a federal environmental recovery fee, a state inspection fee, and state and county sales taxes.

“The company, we’re not benefiting anything,” Bates said, “We’re just asking to stay whole and not be impacted. None of this money is going to Unity — it’s going to our fuel supplier.”

Bates said the company can work with the county public utilities on the adjustments. “We don’t know what’s going to come up in the next four or five months. It’s getting a little bit crazy with this fuel situation.”

County Attorney Glynn Rollins said, “We can work this out. I’m not so concerned about the contract itself. We can figure out how to adjust the fuel. My concern is once you impose a fee for collection, for disposal, for availability that fee is set.”

The attorney said, “If fuel costs go down enough to where it’s not costing us what we have charged our customers on their annual fee that’s on their tax bill, I don’t want us to get in situation where we have violated the law by charging more for a fee that’s higher than what it costs to run the system.”

Commissioner Carolyn Johnson said she believed Qualls’s motion would get the county where it needs to be on the matter. “At the table you’ll have Dia, (Public Utilities Director Greg Griffin), Mr. Bates and Glynn — all of these people who can hash out all these concerns and all of these questions and then come up with an amendment and a proposal.”

Said Johnson: “If we allow them to do what they do then we’re going to get where we need to be.”

Bates, in response to a question by Griffin, said the requested adjustment was in addition to a Consumer Price Index adjustment. “The CPI is pretty much for other costs. Labor is still an issue. We’ve got to be able to increase our labor to attract labor — drivers and helpers. We struggle with that as far as getting county residents to come onboard.”

Bates said the company also has to contend with truck costs and repairs in light of rising costs that have tripled. “We have other costs that have gone up even higher … that’s more than we anticipated. We’re hoping we can allow the CPI to help us with that.”

Qualls said after his motion, which was approved unanimously with Rives Manning absent, “When you run a business you have to realize that your suppliers are your partners. Without them you have nothing. In that frame of mind this is running government like business. We can’t beat Mr. Bates to death because of something that was unforeseen. If he goes away then we’re looking for somebody else to help us. That’s the spirit of the motion.”