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Landfill Tire-Fee Trouble Probed: The Broward Sheriff's Office is Investigating Whether Broward County Landfill Employees Allowed Tire Haulers to Skip Fee Payments

Posted on: Monday, 20 February 2006, 06:00 CST

By Alan Skolnick, The Miami Herald

Feb. 20--A Broward County Landfill employee has been fired, while he and another man remain under Broward Sheriff's Office investigation for allowing haulers to dump tires without paying the full fees.

County solid-waste officials suspect the two men's actions may have cost the taxpayer-owned facility thousands of dollars.

In a report on the firing of operator-cashier Christopher Driggers, 25, county officials said Driggers failed to collect from haulers and covered it up by altering records.

Meanwhile, landfill supervisor Ernest Lee remains on paid administrative leave while BSO and solid-waste staffers continue to investigate, according to Jim Acton, the county's director of human resources.

The two men were supposed to weigh trucks on large commercial scales when they entered the landfill, and again when they left. The workers were supposed to collect fees based on how many tons of material were dumped. The fee for tires was $110 a ton.

According to a BSO report, the county began an internal investigation in late December, when the landfill's quarterly tire report to the Department of Environmental Protection in Tallahassee showed the amount of tires at the landfill was "significantly higher" than the weight of tires documented and paid for at the scales.

The discrepancy led to 10 days of surveillance by solid-waste investigators, who spotted several trucks that unloaded tires and bypassed the exit scale on the way out.

They told BSO that $500 to $1,000 a day was uncollected during the surveillance.

On Jan. 5, county investigators said, they saw a Tiffylo Tire Inc. truck drive through the scale lane into the landfill, at 7101 SW 205th Ave. in Southwest Broward.

After dropping its load, the truck bypassed the exit scale and was stopped by investigators as it drove away.

Investigators demanded to see a receipt, but the driver told them he had lost it while dumping tires.

That's when the county investigators called BSO and put the two employees on leave. Driggers was later fired.

According to the BSO incident report, Driggers told investigators and deputies the Tiffylo driver had paid and left his ticket at the window.

He showed the deputy a receipt for $350.02.

The report said Lee overheard the discussion and volunteered that some of the landfill's regular "cash customers" pay the same amount each time because their weight is on file and it is always the same. Lee said that allowed them to pay at the incoming scale and bypass the outgoing one.

Jeff Turpin, assistant director of the Solid Waste Division, told deputies "there is no possible way" that trucks weigh the same every time, and they always need to be weighed on their way out.

Turpin also said the receipt for the Tiffylo truck was manually generated 45 minutes after the truck entered the landfill gate.

Based on the weight copied by investigators, Turpin said the fee should have been "almost double" the $350 fee.

Driggers had worked at the landfill for about five years and was paid $23,430 annually. Lee, the maintenance supervisor, is paid $51,043 yearly, according to Broward County Human Resources.

Broward County Waste and Recycling Services is still investigating how many tons of tires were brought into the landfill without being paid for, according to agency spokeswoman Jeannie Clinton.

Lt. Jeff Tozzie, executive officer at the BSO District 8 station in Weston, said that while the internal investigation is continuing, BSO was starting from scratch on its criminal investigation.

"We have lots of video and tickets to look at before we can determine if there were criminal violations we can take to the state attorney," Tozzie said.

Miami Herald staff writer Todd Wright contributed to this report.

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Source: The Miami Herald

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