Trash Proposals Scored
Over the past several months, I've served as a member of the Trash Hauling Working Group. We've looked at the current system for trash in Maplewood, developed a Request for Proposals (RFP) for an alternative organized collection system, and evaluated the proposals that we received in response to that RFP. The proposals have now been scored and ranked.
Item I1 on Monday's upcoming council meeting agenda is a request for the City Council to authorize city staff to begin negotiating a detailed draft contract with the top-ranked proposer, Allied Waste Services. (Here's a link to the staff report for just this item, so you don't have to download the whole meeting packet.) If those negotiations fail, staff would move on to the second-ranked proposer, and so forth, as outlined in the RFP.
It appears that any of the four responsive proposals would save residents money. More specifically, the report states that,
In addition, the terms of the RFP peg future increases to objective statistics (the CPI, the diesel fuel index, and changes in tipping fees), which would protect residents from the large and apparently arbitrary price increases some haulers have imposed.
Item I1 on Monday's upcoming council meeting agenda is a request for the City Council to authorize city staff to begin negotiating a detailed draft contract with the top-ranked proposer, Allied Waste Services. (Here's a link to the staff report for just this item, so you don't have to download the whole meeting packet.) If those negotiations fail, staff would move on to the second-ranked proposer, and so forth, as outlined in the RFP.
It appears that any of the four responsive proposals would save residents money. More specifically, the report states that,
...when comparing the average proposed prices of the top three proposals to the current, average published rates as reported by the licensed haulers to the City for 2011, residents collectively could save over $500,000 per year. If the City is able to successfully negotiate with the top ranked proposer, Allied, this savings compared to average reported rates could be over $800,000 per year. It is recommended that further details of proposals and proposed prices not be released publicly until such time as a contract is successfully negotiated and executed.Keep in mind, that $800,000+ annual savings estimate is based on reported hauler rates. As I found in my study of actual Maplewood trash bills, the amount that residents actually pay is substantially higher. When you include the fuel surcharges and other hauler added fees (which would not exist under an organized collection arrangement), the bills I looked at were on average nearly 26% higher than the hauler-reported rates.
In addition, the terms of the RFP peg future increases to objective statistics (the CPI, the diesel fuel index, and changes in tipping fees), which would protect residents from the large and apparently arbitrary price increases some haulers have imposed.
Labels: organized collection
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