District events upcoming

Get your documents and hazardous materials ready.
Jay County Solid Waste Management District has a free shredding day, Tox Away Day and a free landfill day scheduled to help local residents dispose of unwanted items.
In addition to discussing their upcoming events at their meeting Monday, district board members talked about their search for a new employee, established new internal controls and considered an adjustment to how it pays volunteer groups.
The free shredding day is scheduled for 9 a.m. to noon Friday in the parking lot on Walnut Street to the north of Jay County Courthouse. The district has held free shredding days on Saturday in the past but decided to add a Friday date this year in order to be more accessible to local businesses.
Tox Away Day, which allows Jay County residents to dispose of hazardous items such as paint, fuel, oil, fertilizer, refrigerators, televisions and batteries, will run from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Oct. 8. That event also has a change this year as it will shift to the Jay County High School parking lot from the previous site at East Jay Middle School.
The board moved the event in an attempt to improve traffic flow, as previously cars were sometimes lined up onto Meridian Street waiting to get into the middle school lot.
The free day at Jay County Landfill is scheduled for 7 a.m. to noon Oct. 15. The landfill will take items it regularly accepts free of charge. Excluded items are tires, yard waste, hazardous waste, paint and electronics.
Board president Jeanne Houchins updated fellow members Doug Inman, Jim Zimmerman, Faron Parr, Randy Geesaman, Tom Johnson and Bill Gibson on the search for a new employee after last month decided to give current director Ronyelle Edwards a 30-day termination notice. Edwards has accepted another job that would not allow her to staff the solid waste district office during its regular hours.
Houchins noted that the executive committee — she, Inman and Zimmerman — will interview three candidates for the job Thursday. The board has scheduled a special meeting for 1:30 p.m. Monday in the commissioners’ room at Jay County Courthouse in order to hire a new employee.
Edwards has agreed to stay on one day a week as needed in order to train the new employee, who will handle finances, state and federal reporting, the scheduling of recycling trailers and a variety of other duties. Her last official day on the job is Oct. 5.
In addition, the board decided that in the future all checks should be signed by the president and vice president, rather than by the director. Those same board members will also be in charge of checking bills against disbursements ones a quarter.
Edwards recommended those internal controls, noting that it is not good practice for all of those responsibilities to be in the hands of a single employee.
To help make the process less time-consuming, board members also said they’d like to pay volunteer groups that work at recycling trailers and in other capacities on a quarterly basis rather than monthly beginning in 2017. A letter will be sent to all such groups to allow them time to comment on the change.
“If it’s a financial hardship on them, they should tell us,” said Inman.
In other business, the board:
•Heard from district educator Bettie Jacobs that the district will have a presence in both Tuesday’s Indiana bicentennial parade and Friday’s Jay County High School homecoming parade in Portland. She was also at Jay County Historical Society’s Heritage Festival this weekend as well as the Rural America Farm & Garden Expo earlier this month.
•Learned that recycling barrels have been placed at the soccer fields at Freeman Scouting Facility. Delta Theta Tau sorority of Dunkirk is emptying the barrels when they are full and taking them to one of the local recycling trailers.
•Heard a resident expressed interest in cabinets in the garage at the solid waste district office. The board decided to keep in the cabinets in case they are needed in the future.
•Paid claims totaling $19,376.88 for Aug. 23 through Sept. 26 and approved an adjustment on claims from the previous month to fix a clerical error. The district brought in $23,312 in tipping fees in the last month on a total of 13,502.07 tons dumped at the landfill. That brings the district’s total cash balance to $495,199.14.