5.3. SR 11-24-2003 - Laserfiche WebLink

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GARBAGE COLLECTION PROGRAM This budget includes expenditures for service contracts with haulers for the collection of the city's garbage and recycling material, payment for disposal of waste at the Refuse Derived Fuel 0UDF) plant, and for the overall administration of the program, including coordination with the Elk River Municipal Utilities for customer billing. 2004 BUDGET COMPARED WITH 2003 BUDGET The city began the organized residential garbage collection and recycling program in November 1990. The garbage collection and recycling program deals only with residential properties of four units or less. The Elk River Municipal Utilities collects the garbage customer fees for the city. The city makes payments to the garbage collection f~rms for services and to the RDF plant for disposal. The city is at the end of a five year contract with Randy's Sanitation and BFI for garbage collection and recycling services. This contract ends in October 2004. The city has entered into a long-term contract with the county for the disposal of garbage at the RDF plant. This contract established disposal fees at $45.00 per ton through April 2008. Currently, the city has approximately 5232 customers. The customer breakdown of the program by type of container shows: 3498 ninety-gallon containers, 878 sixty-gallon containers, 518 thirty-two gallon containers, and 198 thirty-two gallon (picked up bi-weekly) containers. Additionally, 140 customers have t~vo 90-gallon containers that are picked up weekly. Recycling material is picked up weekly except for the households that have bi-weekly garbage service. Over the past few years the city has used its garbage collection fund reserve to subsidize the customer rates and to balance the operating budget. The purpose of this subsidy was to bring down the amount of money which the city had in the fund balance. This has been accomplished and in October 2003 the City Council approved a rate increase for all of the garbage collection customers. This rate increase should allow the garbage collection program to operate on a break-even basis. The city will be renegotiating its contract with the haulers. At this point, it is uncertain as to the length of the next contract, the contract amount, and if any additional customer service requirements will be included in the new contract. Some rate increase is anticipated. Going out for new, competitive bids is being evaluated. The 2004 garbage collection and recycling program budget is proposed in the amount of $952,950. This is an $113,700 or 13.5 percent increase over the adopted 2003 budget. The large increase in this budget is due to the high rate of residential growth which the city is experiencing and due to a low projection being used for 2003. The garbage hauler payment and the waste disposal fees amount to 96 % of the total budget. This percentage is consistent with previous years. The garbage hauler payment is based on actual customer counts and the waste disposal fee is based on RDF plant tonnage figures. Other expenditures to note include the $26,500 payment to the Elk River Municipal Utilities for billing and collection services and the $6,850 for city staff time that is necessary to manage this program.