Cost-saving Measures & Service Delivery

At the last City Commission meeting the continuation of the contract with Florida Refuse, our garbage collector, was discussed. A citizen asked if the City would look into operating that service in-house, and someone else mentioned that all that is needed is one truck.

Following the City Commission meeting, the citizen that made this suggestion – Mike Carter, a member of the City’s Airport Authority – offered to help with the analysis and suggested that a group of interested citizens might be useful in looking into this and other cost saving measures. I told Mike that I welcome this effort, and I would ask for his help and the assistance of other interested citizens.

I take this opportunity to call the first meeting of interested persons to review the in-house garbage collection option and other cost-saving measures. The meeting will be held at the next City Manager Open Forum meeting, on Thursday, April 17, at 5 pm at the Austin Community Center on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

Finding cost savings is a priority for city staff, and there have been some significant cost saving measures in the last few years. One such measure can be seen in maximizing the use of community service workers. These workers are available at no cost on weekends, and for the cost of transportation and supervision, we have made many accomplishments. For example, they have helped maintain the beautiful new look of the medians on Central Ave. and the shoreline on Lake Wailes.

The analysis of municipal projects begins with the understanding of two basic principles:

1. The municipal budget is a grouping of individual funds with restricted uses. A municipal refuse operation should be expected to fund itself and cannot pull money from, say, the CRA (Community Redevelopment Agency). The restrictive nature of municipal funds is sometimes overlooked – for example, three letters in Saturday’s edition of this paper applauded a recent editorial questioning the use of $133,000 to match a trail grant. Unfortunately, the editorial did not mention that the $133,000 was from recreation impact fees and not from money that can be used for operating expenses. These funds are paid by new homeowners and can only be used to expand recreation facilities.



2. There must be an element of redundancy programmed into many municipal projects. The collection of garbage, recycling, and yard waste is a good example of this type of project, as they must be collected every business day - without fail! Extra capability must be provided to account for unanticipated equipment failures or emergencies. Therefore, it would take more than one truck, even if we had only one route! But our town has grown, and the landfill is no longer on Lewis Griffin Road - it is much further away. Florida Refuse uses four trucks to collect the residential and commercial can garbage (not including dumpsters) four days per week. There are also dumpster routes, recycling routes, and yard waste collection to consider. But there are also some cities in the county that perform this service in-house, so there is some available data.

Every local government, and more recently, each school board, is dealing with the State Legislature’s tax reform measures. It will take a good deal of innovation and creativity to maintain the previous levels of service as we move forward. I welcome all interested persons – including letter writers and editorial writers – to bring your ideas and participate in designing the services to be provided in this new era.