Jill Sessions began as the new solid waste director Monday, Oct. 26. She will be earning an annual salary of $85,000, in addition to a weekly car allowance of $45 ($2,340 annually) and annual sick and vacation leave per city policy.
Sessions comes to Plant City after serving for the last five years as the City of Tampa solid waste & environmental program manager of audits & contracts. Her experience included writing bid specifications for products and services; developing and monitoring budgets for several division and contracts; initiating and conducting internal audits of processes and inventory; serving as the lead for initiatives for the implementation of franchise agreements, GPS/RFID technology and new utility billing system; and formerly managed the Fleet & Facilities Division.
In addition, her Tampa accomplishments included directing implementation of GPS/RFID route optimization and work order management technology, determining best practices for new Operations and Centralized Dispatch system and functionality; formed and led an employee committee to discuss RouteMatch system; completed an audit report and update for Waste Management’s commercial collection agreement, recovered $1.2 million and implemented a new invoice process; oversaw the successful transition of the commercial collection agreement from Waste Management to Republic Services with minimal customer complaints; drafted bid documents for CNG temporary filling station and oversaw project implementation; and implemented a cross-training program for Solid Waste and Code Enforcement employees.
Sessions earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of South Florida and a master’s degree in economics from the University of Tampa. She was a member of the Tampa Mayor’s Economic Competitiveness and Enterprise Content Management Committees. She also recently received the Solid Waste Association of North America comprehensive certification in Integrated Solid Waste Management Systems, which includes courses in collection, recycling, disposal, budgeting, safety, personnel management and more.