Washington reviewing garbage bills
Washington officials are hoping a consulting grant and audit will help take the stench out of residential garbage bills.
Council voted Thursday night to apply for a $7,500 technical assistance grant from the state Department of Environmental Protection that is expected to help the city to attract more competitive bids later this year for its next trash and recycling collector.
City technology coordinator Lynn Galluze is pursuing the grant and said it will help streamline the bidding process to find the best deal for residents.
If approved by the DEP, the agency will assign a consultant to work with the city in April to generate a report that will allow officials to send the bid proposal out in August or September, giving plenty of competitors time to send in their contract offers.
Garbage and recycling collection costs increased 17 percent from $696,570 in the previous five-year contract to the current annual cost of $814,622.
The increase stemmed from last-minute changes to the city’s bid proposal in late 2012 that pushed away competitors and left only Waste Management with an offer.
“I think all of us at the time lived and learned to be more cautious with the bidding process,” Councilman Joe Manning said.
The city and Waste Management disagree on the number of households using the garbage collection service – WM asserts there are 5,108 customers while the city says that number should be closer to 4,800 – driving the bid number up.
“When we’re fighting with Waste Management we’re not even close on how many houses they’re seeing,” Councilman Ken Westcott said. “We just can’t come to terms and agree on the same numbers.”
They hope the grant, along with other procedures, will determine a more accurate number of customers in Washington and tailor the bid to better serve the residents at a lower rate. Manning said council has had city firefighters take an informal census of existing and occupied properties.
“There was always a contention between what they we’re saying we have and what they’re claiming,” Manning said. “We knew there were places that had been demolished that they were still counting, but we didn’t have the resources.”
Each household currently pays $243 per year, which Mayor Brenda Davis thinks is nearly double what customers should be paying, and that they are incorrectly subsidizing other departments while running a $605,000 surplus.
“I think their rate is too high and it needs to be lowered,” Davis said. “I think the taxpayers deserve a lower garbage bill.”
The city estimates that 4,800 households use the garbage service, meaning the average bill for just that service should cost $170 per customer. Manning has said the additional money collected is used for some administrative work and to front money not immediately collected by the roughly 500 customers who are delinquent in their payments. He said the money is also transferred to other waste services, such as leaf pickup and stormwater projects. Any money collected from delinquent customers by the debt agency is typically put into the general fund because it cannot be counted on as guaranteed revenue.
Davis said a time audit is currently being conducted to better gauge how much time city employees are spending mailing and processing bills, along with dealing with other trash collection issues. She has doubts by the amount of time and money being claimed by city workers to process the bills.
“We have to establish how much (administrative) time is being spent on garbage collection,” Davis said.
Council also voted to transfer $75,000 from the solid waste fund to the general fund reserve. Another $139,574 will be sent from solid waste to the capital improvement fund for stormwater projects. Davis and Councilwoman Tracie Graham voted against both motions.