Front Royal ponders saving solid waste department

At a Monday (June 19) work session Front Royal Town Manager Joe Waltz reviewed efforts to streamline the Town’s solid waste collection department.  For over a year Town Council and staff have been reviewing a wide range of options, from total abandonment and privatization of trash collection and recycling, to elimination or streamlining of certain services.

One cost-saving measure – a move to single-stream recycling, which will eliminate the necessity of sorting recyclables – is poised for implementation by mid-July.

Hopefully not on the endangered species list – a Town of Front Royal trash collection truck waiting to clean up after recent downtown event. Photo/Roger Bianchini

Conversation in recent months has indicated a preference to save the residential collection aspect of the Town service through cost-saving measures, while paring back or even eliminating the commercial collection aspect of the operation.  Staff has told council that a private-sector contractor for the Town’s residential customer base would not provide the same level of responsive service that the Town does.

While stabilizing somewhat over the past six years, the Town continues to loose commercial customers, especially higher-volume businesses, to increasingly competitive and cheaper private-sector operations.

Where the Town had a peak of 86 to 94 commercial customers between 2005 and 2007, an abrupt drop from 94 to 61 in 2008 began an ongoing downward spiral.  Between 2011 and 2016 the commercial client base re-stabilized between 35 and 31.  However, this year another eight commercial clients were lost, reducing the number to a 13-year low of 23 commercial clients.

Mayor Hollis Tharpe observed that many of the remaining 23 commercial customers are largely small-businesses, many in the downtown business district that seem reliant on the Town service.

Waltz cited staffing issues – the department has lost 5 employees – 25% of its staff – this year, 4 through resignation, with only one being successfully replaced thus far.

The town manager also observed that despite purchasing a new trash truck this year, more capital improvements are coming – “Some of our equipment is way overdue for replacement,” Waltz told council.

“We are looking for sustainability for this department … we are developing a five-year sustainability plan to preserve refuse and solid waste as an Enterprise Fund – there are some challenges,” Waltz told council.  He forecast an August wrap-up date for development of that sustainability plan, with presentation to council in September about a month prior to the start of the next fiscal-year budget cycle.

Currently, residential customers pay $14.10 per month for weekly collection of the typical 96-gallon blue trash containers.  Council raised the rate on those containers by 35-cents last year.  Smaller 32-gallon residential blue trash bin customers pay $12 per month for their weekly collection.  That rate stayed flat last year.

Higher consumption commercial customers saw the biggest price increases in the current FY 2017 budget year.  Commercial dumpsters over six cubic yards increased $23, from $277 to $300 for twice weekly collections; while once-a-week collections on those same-size commercial dumpsters actually decreased by $12, from $227 to $215 a month.

The Solid Waste Budget for FY 2017 is $1,096,135. That is an increase of $80,635 over the department’s FY 2016 budget.  The Solid Waste Department comprises 2-percent of the Town’s total FY 2017 budget of $45.8 million.