Street supervisor recommends Urban Forest Services for fall leaf grinding despite budget shortfall

Dee, Monroe's street supervisor, reviewed two bids for fall 2025 yard-waste leaf grinding and recommended accepting a quote from Urban Forest Services rather than a fixed-price bid from TLB Grinding.

Dee said the TLB quote was a fixed $7,900 plus fuel surcharge while Urban Forest Services proposed $600 an hour plus a one-time $400 mobilization fee and fuel surcharge. Dee noted that the city's new grapple bucket could reduce contractor hours. "I would recommend we go with urban forest services again this time around," Dee said, adding that the actual cost last year was about $7,900 (the invoice was $9,155.10 with roughly $1,200 in fuel).

Administrator Rindy told the board the yard-grinding budget line shows about $3,000 remaining of the $12,000 budget and that approving the lower-hour approach would still put the line over budget this year; Rindy said the municipality typically reconciles overages across departments at year end. Following a motion and second, the board approved the Urban Forest Services quote by roll-call vote.

The board discussed possible in-house savings from using the city's grapple to load the grinder and the likelihood that hourly billing could keep the effective cost below last year's total. No amendments to the budget were made at the meeting; staff will account for the overage in year-end financial reviews.