Mount Airy officials are seeking bids from contractors as part of an effort that could lead to residential garbage collections in the city being privatized.
A notice was posted last Thursday soliciting requests for proposals (RFPs) to provide solid waste and recycling collection services for local homes.
This is part of an overall attempt to reduce expenses to the municipality, Mayor Jon Cawley explained Wednesday in saying that he is still familiarizing himself with all the details involved with the sanitation solicitation.
“I do know the staff suggested it, and the commissioners agreed, that we need to look for cost-cutting opportunities across the city,” he said of what led to issuing the request for proposals.
This process will examine whether having an outside provider to handle the residential garbage/recycling pickups at local homes would be “less expensive than us running our own trash department,” Cawley said.
“We are in the fact-finding phase and just doing due diligence to see what’s out there,” he advised regarding the possibility of reduced costs for private-led sanitation collections.
“And I have no idea what the results will show.”
While the request for proposal process now under way pertains to residential collections only, not industrial or commercial garbage pickups, Cawley mentioned that studying the privatization of those components could come later.
Residential collections include weekly curbside pickups of municipal solid waste using city-supplied 96-gallon roll-out polycarts, and bi-weekly collections of recyclables with similar containers, from 4,300 residences.
The contractor would be responsible for transporting those items to an “approved designation facility” using its collection vehicles.
Optional services provided by a contractor would include an annual spring cleanup when bulky items are accepted and a bi-weekly bulk disposal collection, according to city government documents.
Mayor Cawley stressed Wednesday that if a private company does take over residential garbage services, the municipality would pay the cost of this, as opposed to citizens being billed by that provider.
The proposal also calls for maintaining a special service in which garbage collections for elderly or disabled residents occur at side or back doors instead of curbside, which includes less than 300 locations.
A five-year term is specified for the prospective contract. The deadline for private entities to submit proposals is July 31.
Tough times forecast
Under Mount Airy’s budget for the 2023-2024 fiscal year, which began last Saturday, 18% of the spending plan is designated for public works, which includes sanitation services in addition to a street division.
No breakdown was readily available showing how much of that cost — $3 million of the municipal budget totaling $17 million — goes toward the residential sanitation segment.
If Mount Airy does go the contractor route with home garbage services, it would not be the first time for a privatization move here.
In 2011, city officials agreed to contract with a private firm, Benchmark, to handle planning, zoning and related functions.
That arrangement has continued since and by all accounts has worked well.
In his budget message for this fiscal year, City Manager Stan Farmer stated that Mount Airy’s financial status “is strong and stable now, but has some challenges over the next five years.”
That outlook is due to inflation, the cost of capital investments (major building and equipment) needs over that period and the absence of a property tax increase since 2018.
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com