Members of the Marshall County Solid Waste District Board, made up of the three commissioners, Kevin Overmyer, Stan Klotz and Mike Burroughs, the mayor, Mark Senter, a City Council representative Greg Compton, a representative from another community in the county, Trend Weldy Director of Operation for Bremen and a representative from the County Council who is not yet appointed met Monday afternoon for their first meeting of the new year.
The meeting time was moved from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. to make it easier for the county commissioners to join the meeting since they also meet on the 1st Monday of each month just like the Solid Waste board.
Executive Director Marianne Peters told members she revised the job description for the part-time educator that is in this year’s budget as board members had requested she do at their November meeting. Peters said she would like to offer the position to the part-time warehouse person, River Watson who is a graduate of Argos High School and will graduate from IUSB this spring with a B.S. in Sustainability & Environmental Science.
Currently Watson is working 15 hours a week in the warehouse and she proposed 15 hours a week as the educator. Trend Weldy was concerned that 30 hours a week would qualify as full time so it was recommended to take both positions back to 14 hours weekly.
Peters presented goals for the position and said the key question is how can we increase the value of our service to Marshall County residents and help contribute to the “quality of life” in our community? She said the educator would create the curricula and tools for school children, create evergreen education content on the website, social media and for in-person learning. Peters hopes to be able to have some type of Earth Day event COVID permitting with the part-time educator working on that event and Watson said he would like to build a composting demonstration site at the Depot and use grant money from Marshall County Soil and Water to clean up the detention pond in front of the facility by removing weeds and planting native plants.
The Solid Waste Director suggested a pay of $18 hourly for the part-time educator position while the part-time warehouse position pays $15 hourly.
The Board approved the salary ordinance for 2021 which shows the director’s bi-weekly pay at $2,468.10. The two Hazmat Specialists make $25.18 hourly while the assistant bookkeeper is paid $12 hourly. The part-time warehouse assistant is $15 hourly and the part-time educator will be $18 hourly.
Peters told the board she would set clear boundaries for hours in the warehouse and hours in the office as the educator to keep the two positions separate.
