County staff propose converting high‑use collection sites to compactors, bring some landfill work in‑house

County staff on Tuesday presented a multi‑year road map to change how the county manages its collection sites and the back of the landfill, proposing new compactors at high‑use drop‑off locations, purchase of heavy equipment to operate the landfill in‑house, and placing the projects into the county’s Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) for phased funding.

Assistant County Administrator for Operations Stephanie Straub told the board the county currently relies heavily on third‑party vendors to manage the landfill’s open cells and to collect single‑stream recycling. Straub said that, under the FY24 budget snapshot staff showed the board, collection‑site services run just over $1 million, landfill services about $1.6 million and recycling roughly $280,000, and that about 66% of the total budget currently goes to contractors. "We think we can reduce that by taking some of these services back in house," Straub said, describing potential savings in daily operations, leachate management and recycling disposal.

Why it matters: staff estimate that converting selected sites to compactors and bringing some landfill operations in‑house would cut…