A meeting was held Wednesday evening in Atlantic to discuss how to help offset future expenses that have outpaced the Cass County Landfill’s current revenue source: the tipping fees. Atlantic Mayor Dave Jones, City Administrator John Lund and City Clerk Barb Barrick sat down with members of the local media Thursday afternoon to discuss what transpired at the meeting Wednesday, which was attended by about 30 officials from around the County, the Atlantic City Council and Cass County Board of Supervisors and John Danos, the City’s Bond Attorney, who’s with the Dorsey and Whitney Law Firm in Des Moines.

Wednesday’s discussion, according to John Lund, was “To figure out how we were going to pay for the per capita fee the Landfill is levying against the municipalities and the County. Exploring what our options are.” He said at this time it appears the County will divert some of the Local Option Sales Tax or other sources of existing money to make payment for the rural residents. As far as the other incorporated cities, Lund said Lewis will use some of their franchise fee money from Mid-American Energy to pay for the city’s share. “Atlantic will just do a one-day debt service and levy that on property taxes.” Mayor Jones said “It’s going to be a tax on the citizens of Cass County, one way or another.”

The increase amounts to 38-cents per thousand dollars property valuation, since the Landfill calculated the fee for the 28-E constituent members, based on 12-dollars per household., or one-dollar per capita per month. Lund said people should notice the change on the property tax bill in January, 2019. Mayor Jones said the City of Atlantic will contribute about $85,000, rural county $42,000. Atlantic will receive its first bill and the end of the 1st Quarter, which is in Sept., 2018.

The new rate will not affect the $100 per ton tipping fee. The Landfill he says, started out being a tipping fee-based only, but it’s not enough to meet the costs of DNR requirements. Jones says Cass County has one of the highest landfill rates in the State.
The option of using the landfill as nothing more than a Transfer Station was also discussed Wednesday night. Jones said because the budget needs to be finalized by the end of March, but after that, the Landfill operators need to seriously look at making it a Transfer station, because “My gut feeling, says, in three or four-years, you’re going to come back for more money.” They have a 10-year pay-out, but they will eventually need more money. He said “It’s not a pretty situation out there, right now.”

Issues with the Cass County Landfill arose when Iowa DNR, on behalf of the EPA, ordered the Landfill to set up a “post closure” fund before the facility could close, if a leaking cell can’t be cleaned-up in a timely manner and another cell is built. That would cost at least $900,000, which is the landfill’s annual budget. They currently have only $300,000 in the bank.

With the adjusted fee structure, Jones said in 10-years they should have more than enough money to take care of the costs, but in an ideal situation, the County would take over the Landfill. That, he said, “Is not going to happen.”