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Category: Readers' Opinions

■ 08 November 2008 | 5:00 AM

Doubts about SPSA

Re 'A prescription for healing SPSA,' letter, Oct. 29:

SPSA commissioner Mike Barrett made some valid points and others through the rose-colored glasses of a 10-year SPSA board member. This may explain his denigration of the state auditor's report so critical of the SPSA operation and management. The plan he supports is way overdue.

But there are more reasons for concern than mentioned by Barrett or reported by The Pilot. For example, the board conducted a national search before hiring as its new executive director a local who was a city manager, county administrator and alternate SPSA board member for 22 years. He will be paid $140,000 a year. He has a bachelor of arts and a master's in educational administration. Is this the best the SPSA board could get nationally to run a waste management company with an annual operating budget of more than $102 million?

In addition, 2009 salaries for executive offices have increased by $103,804, or 17 percent, while contingencies have increased by $200,000. For an organization that does not have sufficient current income to meet current expenses, those at the top do not seem to be sufficiently bothered.

Perhaps most alarming is the finding of the state auditor that if SPSA goes out of business in 2018 and has debt on hand, or funds are needed to tend to landfill sites, the communities it serves would have a 'moral obligation' to pay up.

Who has fiduciary responsibility at SPSA? As much as Barrett wants to look forward, someone should be held responsible for the many past dumb decisions, even the current ones that most probably will cost all of us locally an undetermined amount of tax dollars and fees. The General Assembly should take action.

Ben Krause

Virginia Beach

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Uh, Dr. Tabor

Submitted by Mike Barrett on Sun, 11/09/2008 at 7:56 pm.

Of course I wrote that comment on Saturday in response to a letter to the Editor, but in today's Pilot (Sunday) the editorial staff reminded readers of the offer made by a waste management company to buy all the assets of SPSA, pay off all the debt, renegotiate the contracts with the participating jurisdictions, and essentially step into SPSA's shoes. Perhaps you are right to be skeptical, but on the other hand, despite all the condemnation of SPSA's operations and management, the fact is that the investment in the RDF and the WTE plants, the transfer stations, the landfill, and the transportation assets have great value as a going concern. Of course, SPSA has less value if the members do not sign new contracts. So the trick will be to protect the investment made by our members and by extension the taxpayers/ratepayers in each member community, while assessing what is the best future course of action in regard to waste management in this region.

Uh, Mike

Submitted by Wm D Tabor DDS on Sun, 11/09/2008 at 5:09 pm.

Exactly who would buy SPSA's assets for more than it owes?

Things are only worth what someone will pay.

SPSA's Actual Status

Submitted by Mike Barrett on Sat, 11/08/2008 at 1:35 pm.

Ben Krause repeats some common misconceptions about SPSA. Let me herein correct the record. SPSA is a political subdivision of the Commonwealth; as such, it issues its own debt to fund infrastructue. SPSA is responsible for that debt, not the member jurisidctions. The current board has pledged to pay off all the debt by the end of the municipal contracts in 2018, but readers should know that the value of SPSA's infrastructure exceeds the existing debt, so if SPSA were to sell its existing assets right now, all the debt could be paid off. Krause calls for action by the General Assembly, which is bizarre given the cuts that must be made by the Commonwealth in its own programs and services, and given the fact that we, the eight member jurisdictions formed SPSA for our benefit and are respoonsible for both the good and bad decisions made by past boards. Further, no jurisdictions has cut costs nor increased productivity as much as SPSA has in the last three years. Krause is simply misinformed as always.