PSD moves sewage billing to Linwood

Wednesday November 04, 2009
PSD moves sewage billing to Linwood
Geoff Hamill
Staff Writer

Bowing to public pressure, the Pocahontas Public Service District (PSD) voted to have billing for the PSD’s sewer customers moved to the PSD’s Linwood office, closer to where most of the sewer customers live.

The PSD board ordered the change at its regular meeting on October 27.

In January, when the PSD accepted ownership of Snowshoe’s sewage facilities, the PSD moved sewer billing to the Durbin office on Back Mountain Road.

Donnelle Oxley, Dale Leatherman and other Snowshoe residents said the arrangement was inconvenient. The residents said it was difficult to get information from the Durbin office and that the distance to Durbin made it impractical to stop by the office.

PSD board member Amon Tracey asked sewage operations manager Lloyd Coleman if he would do the billing at the Linwood office without additional pay or personnel.

Coleman said he could do the billing at no additional cost, other than the cost of software.

“I’m not asking for any more pay,” he said. “We can do it with the system that we were using at Snowshoe.”

Coleman said the PSD could obtain the billing software, used by Snowshoe Sewer before its acquisition by the PSD, for “in the neighborhood of $15,000.”

Board members Amon Tracey and Scott Millican agreed with the Snowshoe contingent and voted to move sewage billing to Linwood. Board president Mark Smith said he preferred consolidated billing at Durbin and voted against the measure, which passed 2-1.

The Snowshoe group voiced another concern with the use of sewage account money for water operations in Durbin.

State regulations require the PSD to have a general manager if it operates both water and sewer operations. The PSD promoted Barkley from water plant manager to general manager in February, with half of his $60,000 salary coming from the sewer account and half from the water account.

Rather than hiring a new plant manager, Barkley continued to perform those duties, which require him to be in Durbin when the water plant is operating. PSD secretary Scott Millican said the plant operates about 70 hours a week.

Oxley said it was unfair for Snowshoe rate payers to pay half of Barkley’s salary when he rarely leaves Durbin.

Millican agreed.

“It seems highly inequitable that the sewer customers have to pay half of Mr. Barkley’s salary,” he said. “I don’t need an accountant to tell me that there’s a clear problem here.”

Millican proposed taking 90 percent of Barkley’s pay from the water account and 10 percent from the sewer account.

PSD attorney Tom Michael said an arbitrary decision would be illegal.

Millican responded that the 50/50 split was arbitrary and that a 90/10 split was based on the actual situation.

The board voted unanimously to implement the 90/10 split recommended by Millican, until a better allocation could be determined.

Oxley said sewer customers were concerned with Barkley’s qualifications to be general manager.

“Before the transfer was ever done, one of the questions was, ‘how in the world is the PSD going to handle something as monumental as this sewage treatment plant,’” she said. “That was a genuine concern and one of the things we considered would be to make sure the people in charge are as qualified as could possibly be, in terms of their background, their education, their training in the field and so forth.”

“My concern is that the person put in charge in January does not have any qualifications in the sewer line at all,” she added.

Millican said Barkley’s appointment was temporary.

“It was my understanding that when Mr. Barkley came on, when the hiring was done – it was a temporary position,” he said.

Barkley is certified in water plant operations and has 29 years of experience at the Durbin plant, but he is not certified in sewer operations. The PSD has more than 2,000 sewer customers, mostly at Snowshoe and fewer than 300 water customers in the Durbin area.

On February 24, the PSD board authorized Barkley and Michael to hire employees for the newly-acquired sewage operation.

The pair retained three Snowshoe employees, in similar capacities they held with Snowshoe’s sewage utility: Lloyd Coleman, of Green Bank, wastewater manager; Heidi Hickson, of Cass, wastewater operator and Mike Hollandsworth, of Marlinton, collection system operator.

Barkley and Michael appointed Barkley to the newly-required position of general manager, with a salary of $60,000.

Millican said the PSD should seek advice from the Public Service Commission to create a job description for the general manager and that the position should involve more than day-to-day business at plants.

Specifically, Millican said the general manager should be working in Charleston, lobbying state officials to move the sewage plant project forward.

Board president Mark Smith said the PSD needed to complete job descriptions for all employees and asked managers Coleman and Barkley to draft job descriptions for employees in their branches.

The board agreed to schedule a work session to work on a job description for the general manager and other employees.

The PSD requested a more detailed payment voucher from contractor Kermit Friel. Tracey explained that Region IV, Infrastructure and Jobs Development Council (Region IV) had requested a more detailed voucher from the PSD.

The PSD approved a payment of more than $8,100 to Friel at its September meeting.

Friel told the board he would submit a more detailed voucher.

The PSD board discussed the status of the proposed $25 million sewage plant to be built on Snowshoe Drive. The revised project plan is currently awaiting approval by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). Friel informed the board that numerous stimulus projects had caused a backlog at the DEP.

If the project is approved by the DEP, it will require final approval by the state Public Service Commission.

In other business, the PSD board:

unanimously approved revision to the employee handbook to allow employees to take home cell phones and to give employees a choice whether to receive time-and-a-half overtime pay or to receive equivalent time off. directed Barkley to aggressively pursue unpaid bills, to include legal action for qualified accounts. Millican said the PSD had more than $70,000 in unpaid sewer bills. unanimously approved payment of $1,817.40 to Region IV for project funding administrative services. agreed to conduct a work session to discuss the hiring of an accounting firm. discussed methods to reduce mileage costs, including the purchase of a vehicle. Millican said the PSD spends $500 a year just to have Barkley pick up mail in Frank. The PSD agreed to consider the matter at future meetings. approved October’s financial statement, which reflected $91,866.60 in outlays and $55,242.58 in receipts under the sewer account and $9,147.00 in outlays and $13,736.65 in receipts under the water account.