TO: Mayor and Members of City Council
THRU: Douglas J. Hewett, ICMA-CM, City Manager
FROM: Sheila Thomas-Ambat, PE, CCM, CFM, Director of Public Services
Daniel Edwards, Assistant Director of Public Services
DATE: June 28, 2021
RE:
Title
Waste Management Biweekly Recycling Start Date Amendment
end
COUNCIL DISTRICT(S):
Council District(s)
All
b
Relationship To Strategic Plan:
Goal 4: Desirable Place to Live, Work and Recreate
Goal 5: Financially Sound City Providing Exemplary City Services
Executive Summary:
Due to delays in material production and deliveries, Council is asked to adopt an amendment to the Waste Management contract in order to push back the start of biweekly recycling by one month to August 1, 2021. The impact of the postponed bi-weekly recycling implementation is $64,334.
Background:
On February 8, 2021, Council approved the Adoption of Budget Ordinance Amendment 2021-8 and the Waste Management Biweekly Recycling Contract Extension. The approval provided funding for 64,000 96-gallon carts and moved recycling collection from weekly to biweekly. Biweekly recycling was advertised to start on July 1, 2021 and a third party was hired to produce and deliver carts by June 30, 2021. However, new cart production was delayed. This led to delays in cart deliveries which will now continue into July, resulting in approximately 20,000 residents not having new carts before the July 1 start date.
The timing of the contract execution coupled with supply chain disruptions due to the nationwide plight of COVID-related labor and supply issues caused a decrease in cart production. These factors negatively impacted the third party company’s ability to produce and deliver 64,000 carts on time, which delayed the delivery to residents.
Issues/Analysis:
Staff considered staying the course and starting the biweekly collection on schedule (July 1) and targeting communication to residents that they could call and the City would schedule a return trip to their homes in order to collect excess recycling on their scheduled collection date until their new cart was delivered. This option has many unknowns including how many residents would call. Also, we anticipate that despite our education efforts, some residents are still unaware of the change and many will call regardless when their recycling isn’t collected weekly. In short, it’s already disruptive that we are changing the collection schedule and if we start off on July 1 with nearly 30% of the residents not having their carts compounds the confusion and possible frustrations may be escalated.
The second alternative is to delay the start date until August 1, 2021 and to keep collections every week through July until all carts are delivered. While this option bears additional cost of almost $65,000, it will also be the most easily understood and least disruptive to the residents. This option ensures that residents will have their new carts before the start and that anticipated calls about the change in service will be focused on the change and not the fact that they don’t have the new larger carts yet.
Budget Impact:
The additional contract expenditure can be accommodated within the adopted fiscal year 2022 operating budget. The adopted Solid Waste Fund budget anticipated revenues in excess of anticipated expenditures and, as such, included a miscellaneous expenditure appropriation of $75,341 to balance projected expenditures to revenues. That appropriation can be used to fund the additional contract service expenditures.
Options:
1. Do not approve the contract amendment and keep the July 1, 2021 start date.
2. Approve the contract amendment with Waste Management and delay the start date of biweekly recycling collection from July 1, 2021 to August 1, 2021.
Recommended Action:
Staff recommends that Council move to change the start date for commencement of biweekly recycling from July 1, 2021 to August 1, 2021.
Attachments:
First Amendment to WM Recycling Agreement June 2021
Fayetteville Letter