New Albany’s drainage staff privatized

By ERIC SCOTT CAMPBELL
Eric.Campbell@newsandtribune.com

— Environmental Management Corp. will absorb New Albany’s drainage department Aug. 1, the result of a three-member city panel’s decision Friday morning.

Tim Deatrick, Sam Asberry and Al Goodman of the Stormwater Board agreed to a three-year EMC contract worth $507,000 a year, officials said. The company will add five maintenance jobs and an office job, and the six workers being taken off the city’s payroll are being offered those positions at their current salaries.

However, two of those workers are paid from the drainage budget but do not work for the department. Jim Brewer has an office job and Mickey Thompson — president of the local government-staff union — works in the city garage. The presence of their salaries in the drainage budget is a legacy of a once-combined sewer and drainage-maintenance department.
Deatrick was asked whether recent labor disputes between city workers and EMC’s management team factored into the decision to streamline.

“I think more than anything it was a business decision,” said Deatrick, who added that the department had been “constrained” by having only three maintenance workers and lacking commercial driver’s licenses to operate specialized vehicles.

The city drainage workers must decide by Aug. 1 whether to take the EMC jobs, said Brian Dixon, the company’s director of drainage operations.

If Brewer and Thompson choose not to take EMC jobs, the city would have to pay Brewer’s and Thompson’s salaries or lay them off.

Deatrick, whom Mayor James Garner appointed board chairman, said the administration knew EMC had made the proposal, which will cost about $5,000 more per year than the current operations setup. Mayor James Garner could not be reached for comment on the contract, while Controller Kay Garry said she’d heard nothing about it until speaking with The Tribune on Friday afternoon.

Garry could not venture a guess as to how the city could pay more salaries. The state ordered New Albany’s general and Street Department budgets cut last month; the City Council balked Thursday night at spending cash reserves to keep the general budget intact.

Sewer Board member and Council President Larry Kochert also had heard nothing about the stormwater privatization. He was reluctant to weigh in without knowing more, but he said EMC — which also is the private contractor for the sewer utility — “does a good job” but is “pricey.”

For more on the Storm Water program, read the full story at the New Albany Tribune.