Pittsylvania County scraps landfill position

Pittsylvania County will eliminate its solid-waste director’s position on June 30 as part of a plan to re-organize operations at the county landfill in Dry Fork.

The county expects to save about $40,000 per year as a result of the changes.

The Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors OK’d the move with a 6-1 vote during its regular meeting last week, with Staunton River Supervisor Marshall Ecker opposing the idea. He said the re-adjustment was political and will cost the county more money in the long run.

“It’s a political move, is what it really is,” Ecker said Wednesday. The decision was “just changing personnel to satisfy certain people,” he said, declining to elaborate further.

But Dan River Supervisor James Snead, who chairs the Personnel Committee that recommended the changes, said the move was not political but a cost-saving measure.

County finances are tight, and the board needed to cut spending to avoid raising taxes by too great an amount, Snead said. Plus, he said, there had been complaints about the landfill; he, too, declined to elaborate.

The county’s 2009-10 $227.1 million budget includes increases in a number of taxes, including those for real estate, consumer utility and personal property, as well as the motor-vehicle fee.

Supervisors had discussed raising the real-estate tax rate from 53 cents per $100 of assessed value to 62 cents, but instead increased it to 56 cents per $100 of assessed value.

Ernie Hoch, the county’s solid waste director, declined to comment on the board’s decision to terminate his position. Hoch’s annual salary is about $58,000.

Other changes at the landfill include replacing a retiring truck driver, and advertising for the replacement of the landfill foreman with a landfill operations manager who would have expanded duties.

The county will also re-classify an operator who has a state license to a lead operator, and change the chief mechanic to the chief mechanic for operations, which would have additional responsibilities of overseeing and dispatching solid-waste collection vehicles.