Town pushes toward final solution for trash, recycling

At a Monday (Dec. 5) work session, the Front Royal Town Council revisited the future of its Solid Waste (aka trash) Collection Department – and promised a final decision by June 2017.  Whether that solution will include outsourcing the entire department to a private contractor remains to be seen.

Several ideas have been tossed around over the past year as cost-saving measures.  They include streamlining operations to increase efficiency; changing recycling to a “single-stream” system that would not require customers to separate recyclable items; to more extreme moves from collection every two weeks; to dropping commercial customer collections; or the aforementioned paying someone else to do it altogether.

Will trash collection trucks here eventually carry a private company name, rather than the Town of Front Royal’s? A vote scheduled for Dec. 12 on the purchase of a more-efficient, rear-loader might indicate a Council majority’s intention.

Despite some ongoing issues with operations, past Council discussion has described the Town’s municipal Solid Waste Department as likely more responsive than an outside contractor would be to individual citizen needs – like late pick ups – that arise on a weekly basis.

The issue of how to proceed with trash and recycling in Front Royal has been propelled forward this year by the pending necessity to purchase a replacement trash truck.  The originally-estimated price of $200,000 for a rear-loading truck led several on Council to push for other options.

Town staff presented one of those options to Council Monday – rental of a rear-loader, as opposed to purchase.  However cost variables – $72,000 per year to rent versus annual payments of about $34,000 over five years to buy at the offered price of just under $176,000 – pushed some toward the purchase option.

Playing with broken toys

Former Town Public Works Director Gene Tewalt called the front-loaders the Town now has less efficient, and pointed to their age. – “We bought those before I retired and I retired in 1998, so I KNOW they’re OLD,” he said, drawing some laughter.

Mayor Tim Darr also pointed out that the more efficient rear-loading truck was necessary to determine the potential and cost savings of the streamlined operation that Council wants evaluated over the next six months.

Despite that rationale and the short-term saving of purchasing a replacement truck, at least one Councilman wondered if purchase might indicate a premature decision to maintain Town trash collection, either in whole or part.

“That seems to send a conflicting message,” Jacob Meza said of a truck purchase at this point in the discussion.  Meza has been on the fence about a final decision on maintaining or outsourcing trash collection.  He suggested that rental would be the best option for the Town to explore the potential of reorganization or divestment.

The short-term rental price is $6,500 per month; long-term is $5,850 monthly.

Mayor Darr replied to Meza’s concerns over purchase by asserting that the refuse truck purchase was a separate issue from the recycling study, which the mayor perceived as the primary reorganizational issue still on the table for residential service.

Heyyy – Solid-Waste Collection Crew Chief Andrew Heacock explains dynamics and delays in the Town’s analysis of its trash collection and recycling efforts. Council is faced with a pending vote on providing the department with an optimum piece of equipment to make that analysis more accurate.

“Maybe if we were 100-percent there (outsourcing) – MAYBE.  But we’re not there, and I don’t think we’ll ever be,” Darr, who did not run for re-election and will leave office at the end of the year, said.  He may have been buoyed in that belief by the fact that his “successor-elect”, Vice-Mayor Hollis Tharpe, has appeared to favor Town maintenance of all or part of its trash collection service in earlier discussions.

Internal financing

Financing of the purchase option was suggested through an internal loan from the Town’s unencumbered Water Department Enterprise Fund.  That would save the Town paying interest on what would be a $139,535, four-year loan across Town departments.  As staff pointed out, the money to cover the initial $36,400 payment has been included in the FY 2017 Budget.  Staff noted the Water Department could absorb the trash truck loan without risking its reserve parameters.

Darr’s fellow lame-duck, Bret Hrbek, who also did not run for re-election, said he would support the purchase option because it appeared a Council majority did.  However, he noted his discomfort with approving such internal, across Town Enterprise Fund loans – “It’s not what the water fund is for – (financing other departments) it does not reflect the true cost of government,” Hrbek said of his philosophical misgivings.

Council moved a vote on the Refuse Truck purchase to its December 12 agenda.  The discussion preceding and result of that vote is a likely indicator of a current majority’s stance on maintaining, at least a long-term residential trash collection service.

As noted in discussion this spring and summer, Front Royal’s trash collection and recycling budget is by far the cheapest of the Town’s Service Department Budgets.  Solid Waste’s most recent annual budget was $1.09-million, or about 2-percent of the Town’s total Budget of $45.8-million.  Other Town Enterprise Budgets range from a low-end $5.7 million for the aforementioned Water Department; to $18.5-million annually to support the Town’s Electric Utility.