Payments to the two busiest residential garbage haulers in non-municipal Warren County to cover delinquent customer accounts are outpacing collections of monthly fees actually paid, according to figures released Monday.

Last fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, the county’s income from $1.25 surcharges included on residential and commercial bills sent by Waste Management averaged $16,000 per quarter. Outgoing payments from the general fund to cover the firm’s unpaid bills averaged $34,000.

Balances for Earth Friends Environmental Services during the last year are also at a negative, with about $6,500 being spent to cover unpaid bills for every $2,000 in actual collections.

County Administrator John Smith presented the figures to Warren County supervisors as the board voted to take proposals to have a new collection agency step in and handle such cases.

To cover budgetary holes, the board OK’d moving $34,673.86 from the general fund to the garbage fund — one of two interfund loans totaling more than $45,700.

Later, Smith likened the situation to the recent $700 billion federal bailout of Wall Street financial institutions. “We’ve been bailing out the garbage haulers,” Smith said.

The move is another step in an ongoing reorganization of the Environmental Services Office, which has entailed firming up address lists and staff changes to get a handle on how many households are active in the system the state has long required. County boards do not have to operate waste collection services, but must have comprehensive ordinances describing how waste is collected and disposed of in nonmunicipal areas. Here, supervisors franchise private collection services and are supposed to have a comprehensive list accounting for how waste is handled from every postal address.

Households not recorded as having paid the monthly surcharge must provide proof in writing that they are attempting to lawfully dispose of residential and commercial garbage. Permission can be given from the owner of a commercial receptacle and residents can also take it to Waste Management themselves if documented.

The most recent figures from early this year showed 5,420 actively paying customers in compliance, slightly less than half the nonmunicipal households in Warren County. In about two more years, completion of the 2010 Census will provide another adjustment.

Three private hauling operations handle roughly 500 households scattered around the county with clusters of loyal customers but without specific boundaries.

In the second movement of money, $11,169.94 was transferred from the general fund to the law library fund.

*

Contact Danny Barrett Jr. at dbarrett@vicksburgpost.com.