Trashing the payments
Ulster County Comptroller Elliott Auerbach said the county Resource Recovery Agency is taking taxpayers for a ride due to a failure by county political leaders  in the legislature to exercise enough oversight. ?In a report issued Aug. 30, Auerbach said that payments totaling $31.9 million to the Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency since 1998 were too high and had risen as a result of a  “laissez-faire approach and hands-off governance style.”
Auerbach is a Democrat and the county Legislature currently  has a Republican majority  and since 1998 has only had a Democratic majority for four years. Auerbach is up for election this year and legislators claimed he is simply trying to use the agency as a scapegoat to help re-election efforts. But the comptroller said the facts are on his side.
The payments were made under what is called a net service fee agreement, which was created in 1991 to ensure county funds would make up any shortfall in the agency”™s annual operating budget. Â ?In the report, Auerbach found that $1.4 million was paid for 2009; $1.25 million for 2008; $1.89 million for 2007; $2.39 million for 2006; $2.4 million for 2005; $3.41 million for 2004; $2.78 million for 2003; $4 million for 2002; $3.6 million for 2001; $3.39 million for 2000; $3.79 million for 1999; $1.61 million for 1998.?Auerbach said the contract governing the net services fees calls for the agency to “exercise its best effort to reimburse the county.”
But he said that his review found no evidence that the county Legislature is seeking to hold them to that obligation.?“It looks like the initial intent back at its inception was to provide a net service fee to help the agency get up on its feet in the first few years,” Auerbach said. “But really what it”™s turned into is the proverbial finger in the dike for the agency.”?Legislative Chairman Fred Wadnola, who spent two years as an Resource Recovery Agency board member for two years, said Auerbach made no effort to speak to the Legislature before issuing his report.
And he said that the agency has kept costs relatively stable, despite difficulties with markets for recycled goods. Â ?“We streamlined the operation out there,” he said. “We had a time period when the recycling went down because there was no market for it, but now the market”™s coming back so the net service agreement will probably be reduced again this year.”
Auerbach said failure to repay the net service fees is among several apparent violations of state law governing public authorities. He said that although the net service fee has been amended several times since 1992, “it  failed to speak to or address the issue that on a yearly basis since 1998 that the county has been writing a check to the Resource Recovery Agency,” he said.