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City negotiates 1% increase to Royal recycling/garbage contract; tonnage reductions lower net cost
Summary
City staff negotiated a one-percent increase to the municipal trash-and-recycling contractor’s delivery fee for next year while reported quarterly auditing and better separation lowered disposal tonnage and the net cost to the city.
City staff told council members they reached a one-percent increase with the city’s municipal waste contractor after months of negotiations, and that improved monitoring of weights and collection practices has reduced overall disposal costs.
Chris White, the city administrator, said Royal (the municipal contractor) requested a 5 percent increase because of rising labor costs but the city negotiated the increase down to 1 percent — an annual change estimated at about $6,600. White said the delivery fee increase will be largely offset by lower disposal charges driven by more accurate tonnage accounting and quarterly audits of truck loads.
Jamie Mesnick (city staff) has been auditing collection runs and flagging private recycling loads that had been commingled with municipal recycling. Under a revised practice, staff do periodic ride-alongs and quarterly audits rather than weekly weigh-ins; those adjustments have reduced municipal tonnage by about 10 percent year over year, White said. The city also consolidated recycling truck rounds, reducing duplication of routes and the number of trucks on the road.
Staff said the current contract is on a yearly cycle and would have required a full bid procurement if the parties had not reached agreement before the contract expiration. White said agreeing now avoided a lengthy competitive bid process and locked in pricing within the city’s budget for 2025.
The council did not take a formal vote at the workshop, but staff characterized the outcome as an executed administrative agreement to extend the municipal contract for another year with the negotiated 1 percent delivery increase; disposal charges are expected to fall because of lower measured tonnage.
