Travis Durham outlines Greer public services staffing and equipment needs; council weighs automation and municipal penny

Director of Public Services Travis Durham presented the City of Greer’s public services five‑year budget overview and a list of operational needs during a council workshop, saying the department must balance aging equipment and recurring labor demands while preserving core service levels.

Durham told council his department oversees administration, grounds athletics, urban parks, solid waste oversight and street maintenance and that many line items in the FY26 proposal represent budgeted personnel rather than actual payroll. "Personnel and operating cost are our largest drivers," Durham said, adding that the budget aims to maintain existing service levels while identifying targeted improvements.

The presentation included specific service metrics and requests: roughly 3,700 hours of landscape maintenance attributed to athletic complexes and facilities; about 22,000 linear feet of CCTV pipe inspections completed for stormwater; and June 2024–April 2025 solid waste totals of just over 8,100 tons in Greenville County and about 3,800 tons in Spartanburg County. Durham said the convenience center took in about 250 tons of recyclable material and that adding a part‑time operator reduced overflows and improved site management.

Durham outlined equipment investments and replacements: a second robotic field painter that reduced field‑painting time from several hours to about 23 minutes, an artificial non‑astro turf mound installed at Stevens Field to reduce recurring rebuilds, additional leaf machinery (the current units are 15+ years old), a $26,000 replacement sand spreader for winter operations, message‑board and arrow‑board upgrades and expanded sign‑shop materials to print MUTCD‑compliant signs in‑house. "We went through all the fair and poor rated stuff," Durham said of a recent sign inventory and reported the sign shop has printed roughly 70,000 square feet of vinyl to date, reducing outsourcing delays.

Council members pressed staff on operational details and tradeoffs, including sweeper routing, curb‑line spraying and the risks of automation. When asked whether the street sweeper runs on a fixed route, Durham said the vehicle is run daily by an experienced operator but not routed by GPS software: the operator follows areas they know as priorities. On curb and sidewalk spray operations, Durham said the city uses a 200‑gallon skid sprayer with two staff and expressed caution about automated spray units because of overspray and control issues. "If we're increasing our curb‑line spraying and frequency, [we'd need] another truck, another skid, two more staff members," he said.

Councilors and staff discussed adopting more automation—autonomous mowers, combined sweeper/sprayer vehicles and routing software—as a way to cover more ground without proportionally increasing headcount, while acknowledging that automation still requires equipment investment and oversight. One council member said they would be open to increasing stormwater fund revenue to pay for automation and additional equipment.

Staffing shortfalls were a recurring theme: Durham said the department is down six to eight positions and that some divisions (for example, stormwater) operate with fewer than the intended number of staff. He requested two groundskeeper positions for the Hood Road Public Service Training Center and Sports & Event Center and a part‑time convenience center operator; Durham cautioned that filling vacancies alone may not immediately deliver new programs such as a continuous sidewalk installation and repair effort without broader operational planning.

Durham also reviewed emergency response metrics from recent winter storms: about 40 staff worked back‑to‑back weekends totaling roughly 5,700 labor hours; the city used about 17,300 gallons of brine, 295 tons of sand/salt and plowed just over 4,800 lane miles. He said these episodes stressed existing resources but were handled without major incident.

On budget pressures, staff reported rising materials and equipment costs—Durham cited increases of roughly $8 per cart and $3 per wheel for refuse carts—and said the Meridian sanitation contract runs through June 2027 with a built‑in maximum escalation (about 5% per year as currently written). When asked about rising fuel costs, Andy said staff have "made reasonable preparations to absorb those increases in our budgets across the board," and that the presented budgets factor in expected fuel price increases.

Near the end of the presentation, staff noted a recent state legislative change that, according to staff, gives municipalities the option to place a municipal "penny" sales tax on the ballot by referendum for capital projects in counties that have not already approved similar local sales taxes. Andy said the city would have to earmark proceeds to a capital project plan and that, for Greer, implementation would likely be limited to portions of the city inside Greenville County; he added such a referendum could theoretically be held as early as November. Councilors were told the measure would require clear project scoping and spend limits, similar to county programs.

The workshop closed with staff reminders about the next meeting agenda (parks and recreation, administration and planning) and a request that council members contact staff with follow‑up questions. The presentation left council with concrete figures on staffing vacancies, equipment replacement needs and short‑term operational options—choices the council may consider funding through the budget process or a targeted referendum.