County ponders major increases for hauling waste

There hasn’t been much good news lately for the Lincoln County Commissioners as they try to make their way through a massive budget deficit.

And last week’s July 31 meeting didn’t provide any good news, either.

Health Department Director Kathi Hooper provided new proposed figures for the waste hauling contract that expires in November.

The last deal with Evergreen Hauling was for $292,000 for the current fiscal year, but the new proposal is $550,000 for fiscal year 2024-25. In the fifth year, the cost would rise to $668,000.

Hooper said Evergreen officials told her the company has been losing money on the current deal.

“I knew it would go up, but I didn’t think it would be that much,” Hooper said.

District 3 Commissioner Josh Letcher said he wasn’t surprised it would increase that much.

At the June 26 weekly meeting during a discussion of the library budget for the new fiscal year, District 1 Commissioner Brent Teske said the county’s projected deficit of more than $2.7 million had it looking to make cuts.

“We have to make some pretty substantial cuts and there aren’t a lot of places to cut,” Teske said. “The places we are looking to cut, we are looking to mitigate as much as we can.”

Hooper said Evergreen is the only licensed waste hauler in the county. She said if the county did its own waste hauling it would cost about $360,000. 

“But there’d be equipment, maintenance and other costs, too,” she said.

The county does not have pickup trucks, only roll-off container trucks.

The ensuing discussion included reducing pickup sites, closing single-can sites, closing sites not on county property and possibly closing more remote sites in the county.

Someone mentioned the possibility of the state approving another waste hauler and putting the contract out for bid to see if another company would be interested in the contract.

There was also discussion of looking at how Boundary County reduced costs related to waste.