Summit County Council Members on Wednesday came to a basic agreement about the future of their trash collection.
They said their aim is to implement a new garbage contract, rather than to take on trash pickups as an in-house operation.
County Council Member Glenn Wright said Landfill Superintendent Tim Loveday told them that an in-house operation would be costly for the first seven years, due to the costs they would have to pay for trucks, drivers and other items.
“There are also a lot of difficulties that we would face in operations. There are pluses and minuses. Having complete control of your own operation, having flexibility to change things as needed is good. But the hiring process, workers comp insurance, the liability insurance. All of those issues will really, thorny potential issues that we couldn’t put an exact dollar figure on.”
He said they will have to develop an RFP process for a new contract by next fall.
“Gonna be a fairly complicated RFP. And we’re gonna reach out to potential providers to give us some options going forward.”
Wright said that their current trash hauler, Republic Services, and at least two other companies, could be candidates for a new contract.
The Council also learned that the current cost of the contract is $3 million annually. Under a new deal, that will increase to $3.6 million.
“The contract we’re on is 5 years old. It did have some escalators in it. But we had a pretty favorable contract, and the escalators probably did not cover the actual increase in costs over that period of time. When looking at our monthly costs per can, we are actually paying less now then virtually anybody in the area.”
He said they will likely award the new contract next year. That has to happen some six to nine months before the contract takes effect—especially if the trash hauler is a new company that has to get oriented.
The finances of a new contract will be a major topic for the 2021 budget plan. Wright said they’re likely looking at three options in order to pay for it.
“Right now, we have a mixed revenue source. We have $40 a year fee each homeowner, which doesn’t even close cover the expenses, and a massive subsidy from the General Fund. We could continue to do that. We could up the fee. We could get rid of the fee and do a complete subsidy. One other option that we talked about really a couple of years ago was setting up a solid waste district for the entire county and having a separate mill levy on your taxes, so people would see exactly what they’re paying for.”
Summit County Council Member Glenn Wright, who said that recycling is a big unknown in the plans for a new contract.
