County seeks to cut GFL hauling costs with compactors, recycling shift to SLM

County staff told commissioners they are pursuing capital investments and operational changes designed to reduce the county's solid-waste hauling costs after receiving a steep proposal from GFL.

Alicia Searcy described the plan: "One of the biggest things that we will be proposing will be the installation of compactors almost at every location, either a cardboard compactor or a trash compactor at every location to reduce the number of trips that GFL will be doing." She added the county expects SLM to collect cardboard and metal and take it directly to their facility "at about half the proposed cost or less than half the proposed cost of what GFL wanted to do." Searcy said she is "hoping that we will be able to get the 3,000,000 down to 2,000,000 at at a minimum." The $3,000,000 figure is the baseline cost included in the draft budget to reflect GFL's initial proposal.

Why it matters: Solid-waste hauling is one of the largest operating cost drivers in the draft budget; changes to hauling frequency, compacting and who collects recyclables could materially reduce operating expense and influence whether the county needs to increase millage or reallocate fund balance.

Proposed changes and expected impacts - Compactors at convenience centers and parks: Staff said installing compactors should significantly reduce trips (staff estimated possibilities such as reducing park pickups to about one trip per month rather than multiple trips). - Recycling shift to SLM: Searcy said moving cardboard and metal collections to SLM will eliminate county recycling income but reduce expense because SLM's pick-up charge is substantially lower than GFL's proposal. - Removal of front-load dumpsters from fire stations: The chairman already directed removal of some front-load dumpsters and staff estimated that change alone could save roughly $250,000 annually. - County-operated pickup: Commissioners asked whether buying a county truck to collect roll-off containers would save money; staff said Danny is exploring that option but noted employee availability, start-up timing and capital needs could delay implementation. - Negotiations and timeline: Staff scheduled a meeting with GFL and said they have not yet presented their capital/operational changes to the vendor. Searcy told the board, "But just for the public, GFL is the only option we have as far as trash," noting that county operation would be an alternative but not immediately deployable.

Caveats and next steps Staff emphasized the figures in the draft are preliminary and contingent on negotiations with GFL and on the capital approvals commissioners would need to make. Several commissioners raised concerns about service delivery contracts with municipal partners and the potential downstream effects of service changes on municipal partners' budgets and ISO/rating impacts for fire services.

Ending Staff said a more detailed solid-waste proposal and associated capital requests will likely return to the board in June or July after further cost analysis and GFL negotiations.