Nash County Environmental Health is responsible for evaluating lots for approving or denying septic systems permits for homes. Home owners pay a hefty $300 for the permit.

Salaries for the staff come from property taxes, just like all the other administration costs for county government. They probably average about $40,000 per year with the same benefits as regular state employees.

When the county wanted to save costs to operate the dumpster sites, the county closed the sites on Tuesdays and put staff off for the day. The health director and county manager have not taken any days off without pay to save administration costs.

The Nash County Environmental Health staff reports numbers of septic permits to the state.

Below are the numbers of permits reported for the last five years:

• 2007 – 521 permits
• 2008 – 373 permits
• 2009 – 299 permits
• 2010 – 249 permits
• 2011 – 227 permits

Yet Nash County maintains a staff of five employees in their septic program with little actual work to perform since 2007.

An experienced staff member in the septic system program should be able to evaluate and permit two house lots per day. These experienced staff members did not have enough work to keep them busy for the past five years.

These numbers show a wasteful use of tax funds by the environmental health supervisor, the health director, the county manager, and the county commissioners. They have done nothing in five years to save tax money in the form of salaries in these programs while new homes are not being built and septic systems are not being installed.

Meanwhile the Animal Control program and shelter still suffer from lack of personnel and funds. Animals die because they don’t get adopted, and county funds are too short to keep them alive to wait for a home.

At a time when the shelter should be open for adoptions on weekends, the health director chooses to let county Environmental Health staff relax in their positions with little work to do, collect their pay and benefits and enjoy weekends off.

Why would Health Director Bill Hill and Environmental Health and Animal Control Supervisor Robert Hunt not switch two or three of these staff members to animal control?

Hill is praised by commissioners as being frugal and saving the county money. But it appears that Hill has them fooled.

Bill Hill and Robert Hunt should be fired for allowing this waste of county funds that result in a poorly staffed animal control program and substandard shelter.

Fred Smith

Nashville