2009-06-15 Regular Council Meeting Agenda

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DRAFT MEMORANDUM DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS TO: Julie Feier, City Manager CC: Janet Watson, Deputy City Manager & Finance Director FROM: Evelyn Benford, Director of Public Works DATE: March 19, 2009 RE: Solid Waste Cart & Dumpster Rental/Lease Fee Analysis Per your request, Public Works researched alternate methods of recovering the annual replacement cost of carts and dumpster containers from system users. Below are our findings and recommendations. Current Cart Cost Recovery Program Beginning in January 2008, the City Council approved Public Works’ recommendation to recover a portion of the cost for purchasing carts from users. Currently, the city only charges for replacement carts. There is no user fee for dumpsters. The fee is $40 for a trash cart and $25 for a recycling cart. To date, only about $4,500 in revenue has been generated, as follows: Cart Cost Recovery Program Trash carts 100 $40.00 $4,000.00 Recycling Carts 20 $25.00 $500.00 Total Revenue (to date) $4,500.00 Solid Waste Cart & Dumpster Rental/Lease Fee Analysis Based on our calculations, a solid waste container rental/lease fee of $9.40 per year (or $4.70 bi-annually) could be charged to each refuse billing account. This fee is based on annual expenses of about $112,000 to purchase, repair and maintain solid waste containers divided equally by the estimated 12,000 households/properties served. Please see attached chart for assumptions. St. Louis County vs. University City Solid Waste Cart & Dumpster Rental/Lease Fee Public Works researched the rental/lease fees charged by other solid waste collection haulers in St. Louis County. The cart rental/lease rate charged by three other haulers ranges from $2.50 - $5.00 a month for similar sized containers. The rates were negotiated by St. Louis County in October 2008 and are in effect for the next three years. Their fee structure includes rental of 35, 64 or 96 gallon carts as follows: Company Monthly Quarterly Annually IESI $5 $15 $60 Veolia $2.50-2.90 $7.50-8.70 $30-34.80 Allied $3-4 $9-12 $36-48 City of Olivette $36 (collection by Allied Waste) Recommendations Our recommendation is that since we currently have enough containers on hand for this fiscal year and we received a grant for purchasing recycling containers in 2008, the fee could be implemented in the next billing cycle at 50% of the full cost, or $2.35/user. The percentage could increase with future billing cycles. The current cart replacement fee could be discontinued immediately. If our current policy is changed, there may be some users who will want a refund. I recommend that we provide it to them, upon request. Please let me know how you wish to proceed.