Henry Raymond
Fairfax News => Current News & Events => Topic started by: David Shea on January 03, 2014, 12:26:34 PM
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Nick Hibbard asked me to summarize the potential cost savings of accepting the new trash hauler contract. These are estimates since Casella would not provide actual monthly tonnage figures to Fairfax for trash or recycling.
Here are the simplified details of the contract we had with Casella:
1) Per month flat fee per parcel of land whether there was a house on it or not $20.69 times 1676 = $34,676.44 per month
( This fee included the cost for landfill and recycling )
Casella Total yearly cost: $416,117.28
Fairfax was not given a monthly tonnage breakdown of recycling and trash from Casella for 2012-2013 so we have no way to know what our actual disposal fees are. Casella's representatives stated that Fairfax Disposes 2000 tons of trash per year ( We are unclear if this includes recycling.), the figures for recycling are unknown as they were not reported to us.
Here are the simplified details of the Duffy's Contract:
1) Per month Flat fee per Household ( not parcel ) of $11.00 per month times 1584 = $17,424.00 per month
2) Monthly disposal cost of trash based on 2000 tons per year / 12 = 166.66 times $71.58 per ton = $11,929.52 per month
3) Recycling numbers were not provided by Casella so I do not have this figure to provide estimates
Based on what we know, estimated cost with Duffy's will be: $29,353.52 per month
Recycling is not included in this number but we will have figures at the end of January to use for estimating purposes to project the rest of the year.
Total yearly labor cost paid to Duffy's: $209,080.00
Estimated disposal cost based on 2000 tons: $143,160.00
Recycling: Estimate 1000 tons * 10 per tons: $10,000.00
Duffy's total Yearly estimated Cost: $362,240.00
Yearly Estimated Savings:
Casella Yearly: $416,117.28
Duffy's Estimated: $362,240.00
Difference: $53,877.28
Less Cost Casella Charged for the recycling bins: $13,001.00
Total estimated first year savings: $40,876.28
Total estimated second year savings: $53,877.28
Estimated two year savings: $94,753.56
This first year savings of $40,876.28 amounts to approx: 3.4% of the 2013 municipal budget. Our municipal budget increase for 2013 was over 4% in order to control tax increases cost savings measures are necessary.
I can keep you up to date on savings as the numbers roll in.
David Shea
Copies of both contracts are available at the Fairfax Town Office for those that would like to see them.
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ESTIMATED costs; we will see as who really knows our actual amounts, unless someone has a scale they have used to weigh out our garbage. IF it turns to be this, great, IF not, we can always go back to what we had, just saying.
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Thank you David!
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Yeah, I'm not trying to be negative but I have gotten many estimates that ended up being low before. No offense to Duffy's what so ever, I really do hope they are right on and that they succeed!! But them having no experience doing trash pickup for a town before, kind of rattles my confidence in the accuracy of their estimate (labor cost wise). Not to mention we really don't know how much trash we even produce...... I am betting the figure 2000 tons is either a rough estimate by Casella or they just rounded the number off. If they rounded up because it's around 1800 tons, hey that is good news for us!! If they rounded down because it was 2200 tons, then that is not good for us....there is around a $40,000 fluctuation between the 2. Might want to get the Constable or Sheriff over to the spots where Fletcher residents dump their trash too, that's not gonna help us $$$$ wise lol.
Hey when it comes down to it you never know if you don't try I guess.
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Not sure how many of you on this forum are aware of this, most of the town departments have turned in preliminary budgets for 2014, most of them have increased. Soon the selectboard will be spending an entire day going over them to finalize the 2014 budget. I welcome all who are interested in local politics to join us on this day so that your voice is heard.
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Is that a public meeting David?? If so, many show up, how will you get anything done?
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Josh, I agree with what you said; I also am wondering if they have figured in the OT they must be paying those poor guys still out there collecting tonight & Face Book has postings of people still waiting for their trash to be picked up. They got here last night about 7pm & there are still many houses after mine; hope they stay safe in this crazy freezing weather.
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Karen Hebert,
The public is welcome at all selectboard meetings. Public comment comes at the beginning the meeting and it is the pleasure of the chairman to allow public comments after that.
Dave
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Well that wasn't the case at a meeting I attended; the chair & others board members said it was fine but the secretary said NO they had moved on.....without asking if anymore comment I will add. Thank you for sticking up for us after we left by saying "how do we know what they had to say; we never gave them chance"....(in just about those words).... & for those that do not believe this, look at the tapes.
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Josh Langelier,
Can you please email me the information regarding the location and out of town individuals that are disposing of their trash in Fairfax.
David Shea
fairfax.selectman@gmail.com
Yeah, I'm not trying to be negative but I have gotten many estimates that ended up being low before. No offense to Duffy's what so ever, I really do hope they are right on and that they succeed!! But them having no experience doing trash pickup for a town before, kind of rattles my confidence in the accuracy of their estimate (labor cost wise). Not to mention we really don't know how much trash we even produce...... I am betting the figure 2000 tons is either a rough estimate by Casella or they just rounded the number off. If they rounded up because it's around 1800 tons, hey that is good news for us!! If they rounded down because it was 2200 tons, then that is not good for us....there is around a $40,000 fluctuation between the 2. Might want to get the Constable or Sheriff over to the spots where Fletcher residents dump their trash too, that's not gonna help us $$$$ wise lol.
Hey when it comes down to it you never know if you don't try I guess.
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payless get less
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true Ed: curious how this end results. So far so good so far. One question, Do they have to do it in 2 days or can they set up a plan to do it in 3 days? They do have much smaller trucks. A company with growing pains may have to use different strategies.
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I saw their truck broke down on the fletcher road yesterday in between swamp and wilkins road. very bad place to try and get around
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Thanks for putting that out Dave.
It's always a risk switching vendors, but if the only worries are what if's, what is to stop them from charging whatever they want because people worry too much. Every business starts somewhere and it's more incentive to review contracts more often to avoid getting to set with any one vendor. Dave pointed out that recycling will save significantly. If someone is truly worried about the cost then they should show that through a change in habits. Pretty much every cost is going up as everyone wants to get paid more. The only way to change this is to get vendors to actually compete for business. Someones not going to compete when they know they're getting the contract
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Duffy's submitted an invoice for trash removal for the first two weeks of January. Joe the owner has indicated that the first two weeks were extremely heavy weeks with lots and lots of trash. He has not given us an invoice for the third and fourth weeks yet, but he has seen a significant reduction in the amount of trash that is being put at the curb now that the holidays are over.
Here are the amounts:
January 1 - January 12
1) 66.11 Tons of Trash multiply by $71.58 per ton: $4732.15
2) 8.75 Tons of Recycling multiply by $10.00 per ton: $87.50
3) 1584 stops multiply 2.75 multiply by 2 weeks (monthly 11.00): $8712.00
Total Cost for the first two weeks of service: $13,531.65
Divide by 2 for weekly cost: $6765.82
Multiply by 52 for yearly cost: $351,822.64
Cost savings with Duffy's VS Casella yearly: $416,117 - 351,822 $64235
You will notice in this contract the cost of disposing of recycling is a lot less, $61.58 per ton less. Fairfax has an opportunity to save a lot of more money on our solid waste disposal cost if we concentrate our efforts on recycling everything that we can. Currently we are only recycling 9% of our solid waste. If we could bump that number up to 25% or even 50% the savings to the town would be huge.
The question is, how would you like to use your hard earned property tax dollars? On better town roads, increased recreational opportunities, reduced taxes, or trash removal. Taking a little time to sort bottles, cans, paper, plastic and cardboard pays big dividends on reduced taxes. Let's all see if we can do our part to recycle more and throw away less.
David Shea
Nick Hibbard asked me to summarize the potential cost savings of accepting the new trash hauler contract. These are estimates since Casella would not provide actual monthly tonnage figures to Fairfax for trash or recycling.
Here are the simplified details of the contract we had with Casella:
1) Per month flat fee per parcel of land whether there was a house on it or not $20.69 times 1676 = $34,676.44 per month
( This fee included the cost for landfill and recycling )
Casella Total yearly cost: $416,117.28
Fairfax was not given a monthly tonnage breakdown of recycling and trash from Casella for 2012-2013 so we have no way to know what our actual disposal fees are. Casella's representatives stated that Fairfax Disposes 2000 tons of trash per year ( We are unclear if this includes recycling.), the figures for recycling are unknown as they were not reported to us.
Here are the simplified details of the Duffy's Contract:
1) Per month Flat fee per Household ( not parcel ) of $11.00 per month times 1584 = $17,424.00 per month
2) Monthly disposal cost of trash based on 2000 tons per year / 12 = 166.66 times $71.58 per ton = $11,929.52 per month
3) Recycling numbers were not provided by Casella so I do not have this figure to provide estimates
Based on what we know, estimated cost with Duffy's will be: $29,353.52 per month
Recycling is not included in this number but we will have figures at the end of January to use for estimating purposes to project the rest of the year.
Total yearly labor cost paid to Duffy's: $209,080.00
Estimated disposal cost based on 2000 tons: $143,160.00
Recycling: Estimate 1000 tons * 10 per tons: $10,000.00
Duffy's total Yearly estimated Cost: $362,240.00
Yearly Estimated Savings:
Casella Yearly: $416,117.28
Duffy's Estimated: $362,240.00
Difference: $53,877.28
Less Cost Casella Charged for the recycling bins: $13,001.00
Total estimated first year savings: $40,876.28
Total estimated second year savings: $53,877.28
Estimated two year savings: $94,753.56
This first year savings of $40,876.28 amounts to approx: 3.4% of the 2013 municipal budget. Our municipal budget increase for 2013 was over 4% in order to control tax increases cost savings measures are necessary.
I can keep you up to date on savings as the numbers roll in.
David Shea
Copies of both contracts are available at the Fairfax Town Office for those that would like to see them.
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So that figure looks very good EXCEPT for the fact, using your formula, 1st 2 weeks x 2 = 4 weeks x 12 = 48 weeks & last time I checked we had 52 weeks of the year so we need to ADD 4 more weeks on to our ESTIMATED savings & yes it still looks good but at the end we will know our true savings ..... just saying
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Yes, you are right, thanks for catching my error, I have made the correction.
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Once again trash on Hunt St., (that always was gone by 9am Wed.), not picked up; this cost savings may not be as great as what we are being told. Right now it's not a big deal to leave it out overnight, but wait til this deep freeze goes away & all the night critters start ripping it apart; oh man what a mess it will be!
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Be thankful your garbage gets picked up in these temperatures. I so do not envy these guys in the temperatures they worked in yesterday and today.
My sister's garbage doesn't get picked up when it is this cold...they don't work, so again Thankful for what they endure!
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School street was missed too. Peggy even honked at one of the guys and he never came back. Why don't they go to 3 days? I'd give the benefit of the doubt until now. I worked outside awhile ago and you layer up. A job is a job. We don't have to be thankful if we are paying for it. The made a promise and temp does not prevent working.
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They had issues yesterday so that is why the delay.
Don't have to be thankful, no I guess you are right; I guess I appreciate those who were stuck in working this really cold winter this year.. as we sit inside typing on our keyboards....
Was it -25 below the days you were working Nick? Did you start 6am and get done at 6pm outside?
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Nick your trash should be gone. They are even doing a second sweep to verify school street for you...
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I'm glad you are thankful for them coming to get our trash on cold days. A little gratitude will go a long way in any situation, however I think you are missing Nick's point. I'm sure in your sisters case there is a clause in their contract that says if the temperatures fall below a certain level they will not pick up the trash so that is acceptable. In our case it appears as though that was not a part of the contract. The point that Nick was trying to make is that with any company that you sign a contract with, you expect them to fullfill the terms of the contract just as they expect to recieve payment for services. No one said they had to work from 6am to 6pm. I am wondering why this is occuring when Cassella's was able to complete their obligations quickly with minimal error. I know that they are new to this contract, and errors will be made. I am grateful that this transition is occuring during the cold months so that hopefully they can get all the issues worked out before warmer temperatures come bringing hungry critters looking for snacks. While I enjoy saving money just as much as the next person, rest assured that the first time my trash is torn apart on my front lawn I will be sitting in on the next selectboard meeting as well as calling Duffy's to voice my displeasure. I am hoping that the selectboard and Duffy's will work together and troubleshoot issues so that this can all be taken care of before that happens.
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Josh Langelier,
Can you please email me the information regarding the location and out of town individuals that are disposing of their trash in Fairfax.
David Shea
fairfax.selectman@gmail.com
Yeah, I'm not trying to be negative but I have gotten many estimates that ended up being low before. No offense to Duffy's what so ever, I really do hope they are right on and that they succeed!! But them having no experience doing trash pickup for a town before, kind of rattles my confidence in the accuracy of their estimate (labor cost wise). Not to mention we really don't know how much trash we even produce...... I am betting the figure 2000 tons is either a rough estimate by Casella or they just rounded the number off. If they rounded up because it's around 1800 tons, hey that is good news for us!! If they rounded down because it was 2200 tons, then that is not good for us....there is around a $40,000 fluctuation between the 2. Might want to get the Constable or Sheriff over to the spots where Fletcher residents dump their trash too, that's not gonna help us $$$$ wise lol.
Hey when it comes down to it you never know if you don't try I guess.
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I forgot to addd my 2 cents :]...I find in front of the town garage or the town clerks office is the best place to leave it .LOL
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The switch in vendors was a business decision. It was based on a contractor saying they could deliver comparable service at a better rate. It has nothing to do with anything else. That is what my comments are based on. I fully supported Duffy's at the meeting when the Selectboard chose to switch. But there has been little to no communication when delays occur from the vendor, but rather on here from residents. The vendor told us when to put out trash and when it would be picked up.
I'm no more sympathetic to the arguments about the cold than I was to people who didn't want to change the vendor because of the service that was delivered. Duffy's wanted our Town business on merit of the promise they provide, a service for a price. The first few weeks could be attributed to learning routes, but after that, they should have equipment and staff in place. If they cannot make stops, they should be working to collect customer contact information and letting us know what to do. That is superior customer service.
My suggestion would be for them to amend the contract to 3 days of service and make the routes shorter. Then when they can handle the routes, compress back to two days. But our trash sitting outside for more than 24 hours without notice or contact is unreasonable. What if it had snowed and DJ hit trash containers while plowing? I want them to succeed as a vendor, but I want them to provide a level of service that was expected when the new contract was signed. If that means minor adjustments to what day I leave my trash out, that is acceptable. Them telling me what to do and my compliance only to see my trash there the next day with no contact, bad service.
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I used a little common sense this past week.
I thought about the extreme cold along with the jelling of deisel tanks I heard about and figured Duffy's wasn't exempt from the same issues.
I then had the same concerns others have expressed about leaving garbage out over night, and became proactive and took appropriate actions to properly dispose of it myself.
I feel confident these hick-ups will go away and most of us will be satisfied with the out come.
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the town should just have a big dumpster and bring your trash to it then when its full they bring empty one and take full one that way you can take your trash when you want to
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the town should just have a big dumpster and bring your trash to it then when its full they bring empty one and take full one that way you can take your trash when you want to
That would be a cool option?
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sure rod, so we could pay for any/everyone's trash?! nhibbard, very well said!
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hahahaahaha
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Correct me if I am wrong. Did I read somewhere that we are paying one price per ton for household trash and a conciderably lower price for recycleables. I just witnessed my recyclables going in the same compartment on the same truck as my household trash. Do we have someone monitoring this?
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Tom,
I know at least 1 of Duffy's trucks is a split truck with room for Trash and Recycle waste..... Not saying that they didn't do what you say they did, but maybe that is what you saw?
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They are split trucks and I am sure they are not being merged.
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Someone correct me if I am wrong. I saw my trash bags go into the compartment to the left looking at the passenger side of the truck. Then I saw my card board go in the exact same compartment. I saw 2 compartments on the truck all of my trash and cardboard went into one. I am not saying anything negative about the new vendor. I am just stating what I saw. One question that may make me wrong about all this. Is cardboard a recyclable?
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Last week my recycles were gone 1st late in the day, trash not until the next day; today I saw 1 truck pick up all of it at the same time & it looked to me it all went together. Yes Tom, you can recycle cardboard.
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Tom, I found out that the side loader has one opening but two Shoots, so it looks like they are going into the same place but they are actually going into separate shoots in the Side loader garbage versus recycling. :-)
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I just want to say that I am very pleased that we have local representatives who are motivated enough look at issues like this and not just continue doing business the same ole way. They went out and did the best research possible, took their findings and made what looks like a cost saving decision. I have been fortunate enough to have no change in the level of my service, everything is picked up when Duffy says it will and they have taken everything I have placed out. Eveyone needs to be patient and remeber, They are collecting the trash for the 5th time this coming week. As long as Duffy continues to improve and continues to address issues I am certain this issue will die and we will end up with a service equal to or better than the service that Casella was providing and at a reduced cost.