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Claiborne County could face a budget shortfall later this year if the current landfill reaches capacity.

The County Commission agreed to take about $300,000 in revenue from tipping fees at the landfill this fiscal year in order to avoid a five-cent increase in the property tax rate. County Mayor Joe Brooks and Finance Director Eric Pearson raised concerns when the budget was approved because the landfill is nearly at capacity.

“Our Class 3 landfill, which is for construction and demolition — that’s for building materials from a new home or a remodel — is almost at capacity,” Brooks explained. “We have been years now in the process of applying for a new permit to open up a new Class 3 landfill which would sit on top of our old Class 1 landfill. That one was for household garbage and it closed about 20 years ago. Since that time we’ve been transferring that to Scott County and we pay those folks a tipping fee to haul it off.”

That same tipping fee is what the county makes revenue on at the Class 3 landfill.

“That tipping fee has been a useful funding source for the County Commission in this particular fiscal year,” Brooks said on Friday. “As a lot of people noticed we were set to have a 13-cent property tax increase but because we raised our tipping fees from $55 to $70 per ton, that created additional revenue for the landfill.

“It needed that money for site development and permits for the new Class 3 landfill, it needed that money for new equipment and upgrades down there. The County Commission saw it fit to not have a 13-cent property tax increase and took five pennies away from the landfill so the property tax increase would only be eight cents.”

Brooks said he didn’t fault the commissioner for taking that action.

“They’re good stewards of the money, they kept property taxes low. But they’ve done so in a way that’s a shell game — Robbing Peter to pay Paul, so to speak. Then the last four cents they took from the fund balance out of the 101 fund and that allowed for only a 4-cent property tax increase,” he said. “All of that is to say we’re not moving forward as we need to with saving money to invest it in some projects for the future.”

Brooks shared that the Claiborne landfill was being inundated after COVID in 2020 with people from Knox, Hamblen and surrounding counties bringing Class 3 material here.

“People who were in the Class 3 business were bringing those dumpsters that you see at construction sites and dumping them here because Claiborne County was only charging $55 per ton instead of $75 or $71 per ton in those other counties. It was cheaper for them to drive two or three counties away than to pay that tonnage in the counties where they were doing business,” he said. “We raised it one to stop that and two to be more in line with what the other Class 3 regional landfills were charging. At $70 per ton, we’re still cheaper than those counties but it’s no longer financially viable for those people to bring it to us any more.”

Raising the rate slowed down the amount of waste coming in and also allowed the landfill to bring in $783,313 in fiscal year 2023, an increase of $180,245 from 2022. This year it’s on pace to bring in over $800,000 in revenue.

The problem is that the current landfill is nearly at capacity and will likely lose that revenue for a period of time before the new one is ready to open up.

Brooks said the county has requested an additional rise at the current landfill with the state.

“That rise is not going to change any of the contours of the landfill or any of the runoff, but the problem is that is only going to get us up to April, May or maybe June if we’re lucky,” he said. “At that time if we still don’t have a new Class 3 landfill site that’s approved by TDEC and all of the engineering and sitework done and ready to go, then we’ll be transferring those Class 3 materials to Scott County the same way we are with Class 1.

“Those five pennies of revenue in our budget would then go away because we would have to start paying it to Scott County. Those five pennies would have to be made up somewhere in our county budget for this fiscal year.”

Brooks said the county and its engineering firm, Hatfield & Allen out of Grainger County, have met with TDEC about clearing up any hiccups they’ve had with designing the new landfill to meet specifications.

“I’m hopeful that we have finally had our last meeting with TDEC and we can finally get everything satisfactory for them,” he said. “Now, here we are in January and even if they came to us and said we approve your application on the first of February we then have to start doing the engineering and the site work to be ready to move. Closing the old landfill and opening the new one up, you’re still not going to be ready to do all of that by July 1.”

Brooks said there really wasn’t any action the commission could take at this point to avoid the issue but that they would have to address any shortfalls in the budget if the landfill fills up before June 30. There will also likely be at least a few months of Class 3 waste being sent to Scott County that could cost the county between $250,000 and $300,000 in revenue.