Trash Savings Estimate 2014

[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.

[ohhman]

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.

[mkr]

Thank you David!

[Stand Alone Defense]

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.

[David Shea]

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.

[ohhman]

Is that a public meeting David??  If so,  many show up, how will you get anything done?

[ohhman]

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.

[David Shea]

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

[ohhman]

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.

[David Shea]

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.

[rod anode]

payless get less

[tfence]

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.

[rod anode]

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

[nhibbard]

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

[David Shea]

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.