KKB seeks stability amidst budget cuts

Amid concerns for the future of the Kimball Landfill, Keep Kimball Beautiful (KKB) Director Larissa Binod asked the Kimball City Council to grant the $2 monthly fee originally agreed upon from each household and further asked that the fee be granted annually without future request.

With a budget shortfall of nearly $100,000 due mainly to a vast reduction in sales taxes but also with 30 to 45 percent decreased utility revenues, the council is considering drastic cuts to several departments, many of which do not pay for themselves at the end of each year.

“For the first time, with some initial numbers, it is a half million dollar shortfall in the electric utility that we have to figure out before we adopt a budget,” City Administrator Daniel Ortiz explained.

Additionally, the council faces covering nearly $65,000 in cell closure costs at the Kimball Landfill, according to council member James Schnell, leading council to consider other waste options.

“The City of Kimball says that they have given Keep Kimball Beautiful, in various ways, $174,285.92 since January 2013. I do believe that Keep Kimball Beautiful’s honor of that has gleaned us over $500,000 worth of grants,” Binod said. “We use a lot of volunteers to provide the labor pool. We have a volunteer board of directors. We are an affiliate of Keep Nebraska Beautiful (KNB) and Keep America Beautiful (KAB),” she said.

To maintain affiliation with KNB and KAB, Binod said the local organization must provide projects in three areas, called pillars of participation: beautification, waste management and litter prevention.

An annual litter clean-up is done in Kimball in addition to environmental stewardship and litter education is provided to students and members of various organizations throughout Kimball, including scouting clubs.

“There is also a Community Index that our organization does, which is to rate our community based on outdoor debris, non-working cars parked on our streets, clutter graffiti, vegetation debris and litter, ” Binod explained. “We do a lot of projects with different organizations in the community. This past year we did community planters in conjunction with the Street Department and the ladies at the (City of Kimball) front office helped me pick out the flowers for downtown. There are a couple of murals that we have done and naturescapes.”

The Kimball Recycle Center,a part of the waste management component, offers extended services including: cardboard collection from area businesses, electronics collection and household hazardous waste collection events provided by Clean Harbors.

While the organization’s age is unknown, it began as Kimball Clean Community and has been continuously providing education, beautification and waste management for decades with support provided by the City of Kimball.

“I thought it was more than 30 years ago, but I was corrected by Marlene (Walker) that is was over 50 years ago,” Binod said. “Bonnie McNees was the first director of the organization and then it transitioned into Keep Kimball Beautiful and that is when we became an affiliate with KNB and KAB, and that was over 30 years ago.”

The City of Kimball has provided the building that houses KKB and the Kimball Recycle Center for more than 20 years. Additionally, they subsidize the utilities for the site.

The City of Kimball tacquired the landfill in January 1994, according to the Integrated Solid Waste Management Plan submitted to the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality by then City Administrator Bruce Smith on October 1, 1994.

At that time the landfill had an estimated life of 30 years and according to the document, though an exact figure was impossible to to determine, a mix of 60 percent household waste and 40 percent commercial/industrial waste was collected totaling an estimated 3,200 tons or 12,847 cubic yards.

Kimball Clean Community was a part of the Integrated Solid Waste Management Plan, which estimated that the organization diverted approximately 67,000 pounds of material and was still growing.

“We believe that a well financed, well run program can be successful in Kimball County,” the report stated.

Waste reduction goals at that time were 25 percent by July, 1996, 40 percent by July 1999 and 50 percent by July 2002.

Finally, the 1994 document reads, “It was determined that it will cost Kimball approximately $34.32 per ton at its’ own facility, and $48.22 to haul waste to a regional facility. This equals to roughly a $50,000 per year savings to the people, and also keeps the control of the facility local.”

“So, for twenty years those projects all happened – always, the litter collections, beautification projects, or recycling projects and waste management, have been building and developing,” Binod said. “In 2012 we come to a crossroads.”

At that time, Binod added that funding from grants changed to a reimbursement basis, meaning the organization had to maintain a five-month cash flow prior to receiving funding necessitating secure and stable funding throughout those months.

The City of Kimball was approached through the Board of Public Works for financial support on Sept. 11, 2012.

“It was very clear that it was not a responsibility that the City of Kimball could take on within its landfill department at that time,” Binod said. “However, that is when we went to the Board of Public Works and (Greg) Robinson moved and (Keith) Prunty seconded to increase the landfill fees by $2 a month for Keep Kimball Beautiful.”

Currently, KKB has been budgeted to receive $24,000, a reduction of approximately half, in in-kind contributions from residents which are distributed through the City of Kimball in addition to the building, utilities and outdoor storage.

In addition to reduced funding, discontinued contributions include City-paid insurance costs for the recycling trailers provided in the villages of Bushnell and Dix as well as an employee to pull those trailers to the Kimball Recycle Center for processing.

“Your $2 fee was never a $2 fee. It became a $2 line item in our budget. Now if it would have been somehow put as a $2 fee and was never part of a line item budget that never would have happened,” council member John Morrison said. “You are talking about waste management. I don’t think we are doing a decent job of waste management, not because of you (KKB) but because of the public. If you look at waste management on a national basis, they are all going to single-stream recycling.”

Longtime Kimball resident, and former city council member, Kim Christensen argued that the $2 mistake can be corrected now.

“The citizens believed that we were being assessed $2 that was going to recycling, and I, for one, feel a little offended that that money – if it isn’t going to be used for recycling, I would just as soon get it back,” Christensen said. “If it wasn’t passed correctly the first time and the $2 was put in the line item budget, why can you not pass it now, correctly, and put it as an addition on the utility bill designated to recycle, because in the long run it is going to save us a lot of money.”

Christensen went on to say that when she sat on the council she was part of the discussion about the cost associated with opening and closing cells. She added, “It is a huge line item.”

“Have you driven around and looked at the recycling bins that we are now talking about? If we can’t afford to keep operating, which is entirely possible, have you looked at the tons of trash that are going to go out to those cells and how much quicker it’s going to fill it?” she questioned. “We don’t have the opportunity to sit here and debate it. We are going to fill those cells up and we are going to have to come up with that money a lot quicker.”

“What we have doing for a year is argue over these ticky-tacky points. What we all need to do is say ‘Here’s our goal, how can we accomplish it?’” Morrison concluded.

Council members are asking citizens for input at the next budget workshop, planned for Thursday, Aug. 4 at 5 p.m., as they look at the big cuts necessary to balance the upcoming budget.

“I just want to ask, that $24,000 right there – are you willing to close the pool to pay for that?” council member Christy Warner asked. “Are you willing to give up something else to pay for this, and if so, what is it?”