Spokane Waste of Energy
 Shedding Light on Spokane's overpriced Solid Waste System

  

 
The Spokane chapter of dENSA has alleged that the financial practices used by the Spokane Regional Solid Waste System look suspicious, and have submitted the following questions and comments for clarification. This information has been forwarded to the Regional System, the Spokane City Council, and the Spokane County Commissioners.

1. The Spokane Regional Solid Waste System owns only about a dozen computers, yet the City of Spokane charges them $11,689.00 per month for MIS Services. Ms. Mangerich (Regional System Director) has supplied figures that show the MIS Department can only justify charging the Regional System $3,808.00 per month. This represents a 300% overcharging rate (over $1 million dollars of overcharges since 1992)

2. The City of Spokane operates 5 Enterprise Funds, of which the Spokane Regional Solid Waste System is one. Prior to 2006, the Regional System was charged 10.1% of City of Spokane Utility Department's total costs, even though the Regional System uses only 1% of the utilities. In 2006, an adjustment was made to the allocation of costs, and the Regional System rate was reduced to a more realistic rate of 3%. This resulted in a rebate to the Regional System from the City of Spokane in the amount of $309,139.61. Will the Regional System be compensated for all the years they were overcharged prior to 2006? (year 2005 overcharges equal $200,000.00, and over $2 million dollars of overcharges since 1995)

3. The contract to operate the Waste-to-energy Facility between the City of Spokane and Wheelabrator Spokane Inc states on page 136:

The utilization of utilities and utility services provided at City expense shall not exceed the following quantities:
1. Electricity Usage:*
    a) Usage (kWh/yr)                                            374,000
    b) Demand (kW) (6 demand months/yr)               2,250

Avista Utilities confirms that the Regional System has been paying  Demand expenses for 12 month/yr since 1991. There is no line item in the City Budget showing that Wheelabrator is rebating their 6 months share of Demand charges. Has the contract been amended? If not, will the System receive these past due funds, plus interest? The Regional System currently pay over $15,000.00 per month for Demand. This represents over $1million dollars of illegal subsidies to Wheelabrator since 1992.

4. The contract also states on page 28:

Company shall, at its sole cost and expense, provide all management, supervision, personnel, materials, equipment, services and supplies (other than Acceptable Waste) necessary to operate, maintain and repair the Facility throughout the Term of this Service Agreement.....

The current City of Spokane budget that is concerned with the operation of the Waste to Energy Facility show line items that include: Seasonal Employee with benefits, equipment and repairs, software, professional contracts and other contractual services that total over $500,000.00. These charges, paid for by the Regional System, appear to be contractually obligated to Wheelabrator.