Finance committee recommends John’s Disposal for Waukesha refuse and recycling contract, preauthorizes $2.05M to buy city-owned carts

The Waukesha Finance Committee on July 29 recommended the Common Council award the city’s residential refuse, recycling and disposal contract to John’s Disposal and preauthorized $2,050,000 to buy and inventory roughly 37,000 automated carts for city ownership.

City Public Works Director Alex Damien and Recycling and Solid Waste Manager Dustin Nolan said the current contract with Waste Management concludes March 31, 2025, and a regional RFP process produced six proposals. An evaluation committee that included the director of public works, the city engineer, Finance Director Joe Shearrow and City Administrator Tony Brown ranked John’s Disposal the top proposer based on qualifications, experience and projected costs. Staff presented a draft fee schedule that they said will be finalized after legal review.

The draft contract includes a shift to on-demand bulky-item pickup and a new cart ownership model. Under the proposed terms individuals would pay a one-time fee to John’s Disposal for bulky-item pickups (staff cited a first-year example of $45 for a single-item call, up to $75 for larger sets) rather than the city subsidizing bulky pickups in every monthly rate. Staff told the committee the city plans to buy and own the carts and then include maintenance service in the contractor agreement.

Resident Joe Ziegler, who spoke during public comment, recounted repeated missed pickups and slow company responses under the current contractor and urged the city to increase liquidated-damage penalties beyond the current $75-per-occurrence level. “I was thinking ballpark about tenfold… $750,” Ziegler said, adding that the current penalty feels too small relative to the size of the contract and could make it easier for a contractor to absorb occasional penalties rather than fix service problems.

Staff acknowledged past service disruptions under the incumbent and said the draft contract increases liquidated damages from prior levels; they also said staff would revisit specific penalty amounts with John’s Disposal before finalizing the contract. Committee members asked several operational questions about who will fix carts and how residents will be serviced during the transition; Nolan said John’s Disposal will be responsible for cart maintenance and that the contract includes a per-household maintenance component (approximately $0.05 per month in staff examples).

Staff warned there will likely be weeks or months of overlap during the swap: Waste Management will retrieve carts as their contract ends while John’s Disposal delivers and nests new carts, producing a temporary mix of old and new carts at some addresses in spring 2025. Staff said they will coordinate retrieval but expect the transition to be labor-intensive.

Chair Alderman Piper moved the committee recommendation — including preauthorization of the cart purchase and approval of the fee schedule on page 11 of the draft contract — subject to city-attorney review and final council approval. The motion was seconded and passed unanimously by voice vote.

Next steps: staff will finalize the contract edits with the city attorney, pursue any additional negotiations over penalty amounts, and bring the agreement and CIP preauthorization to the Common Council for final action.