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Marion County currently has issued 21 franchise agreements with solid waste haulers, which includes the collection of commercial, and construction and demolition (C&D) debris materials. Each commercial solid waste franchisee is required to remit a franchise fee of 10% of gross receipts to the County at least quarterly for the services provided pursuant to the franchise. Further, each franchisee is required to provide an annual financial statement to the County demonstrating that the franchisee has fully paid the applicable franchise fee. The County Code provides specific statutory requirements for recordkeeping enabling the County to audit, inspect, and examine the franchisee’s fiscal books and records as they relate to the County accounts. These include, but are not limited to the following: billing rates, billing amounts, accounts receivable, federal and state tax records, and list of accounts.
SCS was engaged to help the County to ensure that the solid waste franchisees of the County are complying with the requirements of their franchise and the Marion County Code, and most importantly remitting the proper solid waste franchise fee to the County for the services rendered in the unincorporated areas of the County. As such, the principal objective of this study was to apply agreed-upon procedures to the quarterly fee payments for fiscal year 2005/06 (12 months ended September 30, 2006) submitted by 22 of the commercial solid waste franchisees currently operating in the unincorporated areas of the County.
In its final audit report, SCS reported several major findings and recommendations to the County, which resulted in significant additional franchise fees remitted to the County by the franchise haulers.
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