ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, December 20, 1996 TAG: 9612200012
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
Despite the expensive advertising campaign waged by a private company to convince residents it could pick up their trash more efficiently and cheaply, it appears Roanoke taxpayers would pay less by sticking with city crews.
That conclusion came Thursday at the meeting of a committee examining public vs. private trash collection in Roanoke. In response to pressure by private haulers, the city had invited their bids for collecting trash on Roanoke's south side.
When all the costs were figured - including a revamping of city trash crew schedules that vastly curtails workers' overtime - it looks like taxpayers would save $108,000 by not contracting out garbage collections in Southeast and Southwest Roanoke.
The committee, led by Councilman Jack Parrott, agreed that it would recommend against turning its solid waste collection department over to a private firm at this time. That recommendation, along with another to buy "one-armed bandit" trash trucks and large containers, will go to City Council on Jan.6.
"On the basis of the comparative bids, it seems more favorable that we continue this as a city operation," Parrott said after the bids were tabulated.
"It's lower than I thought it would have been," said a surprised Councilman Jim Trout, who is probably council's greatest proponent of private trash collections.
Still unclear, however, is whether the city will stay in the business or turn it over to the Roanoke Valley Resource Authority.
The authority has a proposal on the table to combine residential collections with Roanoke County, although its sealed estimate of costs has not been opened.
"That is a whole other set of questions, regional versus local," City Manager Bob Herbert said. The authority's estimate will be opened Jan.3.
Proposals for collecting trash on the south side of town were submitted by Browning Ferris Industries and by Waste Management of Virginia-Blue Ridge, two international trash-hauling giants with operations that take in billions of dollars each year.
BFI's bid was $795,923 per year, while Waste Management's bid was about $1,044,000.
Using a different method of accounting, the city estimated it would spend about $730,000 to provide the same service - or $65,000 less than BFI's bid. The difference jumped to $108,000 because some overhead costs were lumped onto BFI's price.
Chris Rooney, Waste Management's regional president, whistled sharply as the city "benchmark" bid was opened.
"The proof's on the paper," Rooney said a short time later. "They did a real good job. When you look at the numbers, the numbers speak for themselves and end the debate on whether the city should consider privatization at this time."
Scott Axelson, BFI's regional president, said he was not surprised.
"I guess I have to give the city credit for going out to bid," he said. "They put their best price forward. Now they have to take a look and monitor their costs over the next few years."
Key to the city's lower bid was a new manning policy that took effect in the solid waste department at the end of October.
Employees used to work on a decades-old "task system," under which they could earn overtime even if they worked only eight hours per day. The department was spending $120,000 to $160,000 annually on overtime, manager Jim McClung said.
In an effort to save their jobs, the employees themselves came up with a way to reduce those overtime costs by about $75,000 per year. The new staffing system began in late October and has worked well, McClung said.
"This group of employees stood up and said, 'I want to be accountable. I'd do whatever it takes,''' McClung said. "They got no financial incentive, no extra time off, nothing - except for the opportunity to show that they were willing to make changes because they wanted to keep their jobs."
Mike Mee, an area spokesman for BFI, said he questions the city's decision not to have an outside auditor review the city's figures.
Municipal Auditor Bob Bird, who audited the city's benchmark costs, said the trash committee considered that but dropped the idea because only one accounting firm was interested and its price was too high.
"The big question is, what if the city's estimate is wrong?" Mee asked. "I just think the citizens would benefit if a third party, outside of the city's control, was analyzing the numbers."
If council acts on the report next month, the city will begin buying one-armed bandit trucks and the large plastic containers that are used with them. About half the city - although which half is unclear as of yet - would be using automated pickups by the summer.
About 25 workers in the solid waste department would lose their jobs when automated pickups are fully in place. The city will attempt to retrain those workers and place them in other openings, Herbert said.
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