The DPW gave a presentation on the Pay As You Throw program and also on the bids received from private haulers to take over curbside collection. The PAYT program has been very effective in reducing the tons of trash generated in the town and increasing recycling. Not only that, the costs for the service are less than expected due to the tonnage of curbside pickups being halved since the program started and increased revenue from recycled materials. As a result, the yearly fee will be reduced next year to $80 from the current $95. The per bag fee will remain the same. I think keeping the per bag fee the same is the right way to go. I believe it is the per bag fee that encourages recycling and reduces the trash tonnage. One more point about the presentation, ............
................the DPW showed the proposed budget for the PAYT program next year as $1.6 million. But when they showed the bids from private haulers, they showed their costs at $905,000 which was lower than the haulers. What I need to find out is, what is the remaining $700K for? The assessment for the Refuse District is $150K. That leaves $550K to run the transfer station and collect the fees. If that is what our costs are to do these functions, we need to privatize those as well as the curbside pickup.
Generally, I favor private contracts over public work because the private guys have a big incentive to reduce costs. Savings go right in their pocket. The DPW has no such incentive and, in fact, has an incentive to maintain the status quo. When bidding time comes up, the haulers have to sharpen their pencils and get the cost as low as possible or they get underbid. I don't see that kind of cost pressure on the DPW.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Pay As You Throw math
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4 comments:
Bill, I agree, with a couple of additions. I believe that the reduction of the cost-per-household should be even lower for FY09 because there is a full year of funding to pay for a full year of service. That didn't happen in FY08 where there was only 9 months of funding to pay for the full year.
In addition, 4 of the 5 members of my group do not like the way the "bids" were handled this year. We feel the DPW should have put together a firm "sealed bid" as did the private contractors, and the DPW should not have been allowed to open the contractor bids and adjust their own "costs" on-the-fly. This is not fair to the private contractors OR the taxpayers when we are supposed to be looking for the lowest "real cost" of that service to the community.
We are also concerned about the $700K. We have asked the question a couple of times and feel that we have not been given a satisfactory answer. As indicated during the presentation, we wanted the Transfer Station to be included in the RFP and were refused. Bob Michaud has been saying for years that the Transfer Station costs are way out of line with other communities. We felt there was an opportunity for savings on that axis.
If we are going to do this we need to do it correctly and not make believe that we are. The 4/5 of our group will create a public statement on how we think the process should be improved, because we feel we have to.
Because of some of the questions that have been asked of me I feel I need to clarify a couple of things.
What the group is not happy with is the process itself, and not necessarily the outcome. This is an important difference. We need more answers to some of the questions so that we can be totally comfortable with the results, and to that end I am going to meet with Dave Hickox to better understand the data.
With regard to the process, the way it played out is not what we expected based on the "charter" we were given, so we feel compelled to issue a document that will make recommendations on how things should be handled in the future.
When doing things like this it is important that everything be clearly understood and as transparent as it can be, to head off any conspiracy theories. Anyone involved, and the taxpayers, should always be able to come away with a comfortable feeling that it was done as correctly as it could be. Maintaining or building trust in an undertaking is most important, especially when it revolves around potential change.
I don't mean to change the subject, but....after reading Ellen's letter in the S-T this morning, I'm thinking that she must have missed your presentation on privatization. A letter to the S-T from someone who is more knowledgeable might calm her fears. Or maybe not.....
I posted some answers to the online version of her letter. I don't think some people understand that if we don't find cheaper ways to fund a service we will start losing more and more services.
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