Recommendations for Correcting Base-Year and/or Reporting-Year Inaccuracies

This report is the March 1997 Board-approved agenda item titled "Measurement Accuracy Issues Working Group's Recommendations for Correcting Base-Year and/or Reporting-Year Inaccuracies."

Purpose: The report provides guidelines for local government officials dealing with measurement accuracy and is the basis for the Board measurement accuracy policy since 1997.

There are some changes in Board policy regarding correcting accuracy problems based on Board decisions at the January 2000 Board meeting. (See Attachment D) These are described in the paragraphs below and in parentheses or brackets in the text of the 1997 agenda item and attachments.

The California Integrated Waste Management Board reconsidered one portion of the March 1997 approved methods, correcting base year inaccuracies during the January 2000 board meeting; the Board reconsidered the methods to correct base years because as time goes on, it is not only increasingly difficult for jurisdictions to make well documented historic correction estimates for original (usually 1990) generation data, but it is also more problematic for Board staff to determine the validity of the claims. The Board did not change the actual calculation methods approved in 1997, but it did place a 3-year time limit on corrections to base years. See Attachment D Resolution 1999-38 revised.

Contents

1. Summary
2. Staff Recommendation
3. Analysis

• Relationship to Other Work at the Board

• Initial Investigation

• Formation of the Working Group

• Base-Year Inaccuracies

• Reporting-Year Inaccuracies

• Working Group Progress

• Working Group Recommendations

• Summary Option Recommendations for Jurisdictions

• Developing Tools to Assist Jurisdictions

• Recommended Regulatory and Statutory Revisions

4. Comments from the Working Group and Interested Parties

5.Attachments

• Attachment A: List of Acceptable/Unacceptable Base-Year Revision Methods

• Attachment B: List of Acceptable/Unacceptable Reporting-Year Revision Methods

• Attachment C: Resolution 97-112

• Attachment D: Resolution 1999-38 (Revised)

Summary

In January 1996, the Local Assistance and Planning Committee (LAPC) authorized the formation of the Measurement Accuracy Issues Working Group (Working Group) to address inaccuracies in jurisdictions’ solid waste measurements in relation to AB 939 goal achievement requirements. The Working Group met throughout 1996 and in early 1997 to develop solution options for correcting inaccurate data.

This item presents the working group’s final recommendations, which include a flexible range of options. These proposed options would allow a jurisdiction to select what they believe to be the most cost-effective option(s) for increasing the accuracy of their base-year and/or reporting-year data. As a result, California Integrated Waste Management Board staff will be able to complete their analyses of the goal measurement calculations included in the 1995 annual reports following the Board’s action on this item.

The working group recommends that Board staff develop assistance tools, such as a solid waste generation computer modeling system and a diversion study guide, that jurisdictions could use in quantifying more accurate generation tonnage while minimizing associated costs. The working group also recommends the Board endorse some regulatory and statutory revisions that would increase the accuracy of the reporting system and/or the effectiveness of jurisdictions’ efforts toward meeting their diversion goals.

In a separate planning committee item for this month, numerous strategies for achieving the 50 percent diversion goal are proposed. Among those are two strategies (25 and 26) that touch on methods for resolving measurement inaccuracies discussed in this item.

Staff Recommendation

Staff recommends the Board approve the working group’s proposed solution options; approve their request for Board staff to develop additional tools to assist jurisdictions with measurement inaccuracies; and endorse the proposed regulatory and statutory revisions.

Table of Contents | Analysis

Last updated: November 01, 2007