MAN ABOUT TOWN: Talking Trash
By GEORGE SOUTHERN
Falls Church Times Staff
February 22, 2010
I happened to be home when the garbage truck backed into my cul-de-sac last Wednesday – a welcome sight since we had gone two weeks without a pickup. The neighbors had all carried their trash to one pile – dozens upon dozens of plastic bags, including many little grocery sacks. Back in the day, garbage trucks had three men, with what I considered the “cushy” job being that of the driver. No longer. Perhaps because of the City’s hiring freeze, the trucks I see have only two men, so the driver has to get out and help. I watched while one man picked up bags from the snow bank and tossed them to the truck, where the other man threw them in. It took several minutes, and they were working pretty fast. Not a job I would want.
The psychologist B.F. Skinner suggested that in an ideal society, jobs would be differentiated according to their degree of unpleasantness. A window-washer, or a garbage man, might only have to work four hours a day because the job was so odious (or odorous). Meanwhile, a musician (or a newspaper columnist?) would be expected to labor perhaps 10 hours a day, given how much fun s/he was having.
Although nobody paid any attention to Skinner’s proposal, one bit of fairness has developed over the years: Garbage men may have the worst job, but they tend to get decently compensated for it. Municipal garbage workers typically receive all the benefits of a government job, including health insurance, pension contribution, public holidays, sick leave, overtime, and job security. That’s the case in Falls Church (at least for the garbage workers – the recycling is contracted out to a private firm).
But – government jobs are expensive. People tend to stay in them forever (I speak from experience), earning a little more every year, accruing a larger pension and more annual leave. Of the five garbage workers currently working for the City, two have more than 20 years on the job. And experience, as always, counts for a lot. Everyone seems to agree that garbage service in the City is excellent.
But is it worth the price? The City administration says no, and wants to do what 6,000 other municipalities have done – contract out garbage pickup to a private service. The cost savings is claimed at $200,000 a year.
City Council heard the administration’s proposal last week, and you can watch the video here. As someone who is frequently critical of City Council, I should acknowledge that this was really their finest hour. Watching the video, I was impressed by the hard questions Council members raised. They were not “snowed” by the presentation, and quickly ascertained that the $200,000 savings was based on eliminating a full crew of seven (correction: make that 10) workers, even though the job currently is being performed by only five.
That said, contracting out garbage pickup is probably inevitable. It’s more efficient because the work is managed by large refuse corporations – the equivalent of the factory farm. And although City staff claimed that salaries for garbage workers are “slightly higher” in the private sector, I flat out don’t believe it. Maybe the hourly wage is slightly higher, but I can’t conceive that the benefits are the same, and I know the job security is not there. Jobs come and go depending on contracts won or lost.
I’ve already seen this happen in the federal government, where the custodial staff used to work for Uncle Sam but now are contracted from the private sector. During the snowstorm when the government was shut down, I was needed at work. The building was mostly empty, so we were pretty surprised when a janitor came around to empty the trash cans. No “snow day” for him – either show up or take a day’s leave.
So I wasn’t that impressed when a City spokesman extolled the efficiency of contract workers. The City garbage men “work at their own pace,” he said, while “the private sector can do it quicker than we can . . . With the cost savings they’re proposing, they’re going to have to run a lot quicker than we can.” In economics that’s called “the race to the bottom.”
So, let’s admit it: The City’s broke and needs to save a nickel anywhere it can. We can save some cash by eliminating the City’s garbage workers who get full benefits and job security but who “work at their own pace.” So let’s do it. But please — no more sanctimonious pleadings for subsidized “workforce housing” for City employees. Because we really don’t care.
By George Southern
February 22, 2010
What would happen to the current staff if we contract the trash service to an outside vendor? Lots of the current folks have many, many years with the City.
Why is that relevant? My brothers have lost their jobs because of the state of the economy. They have made do finding work where they can. Family has pitched in at times. One of them even drew unemployment for a couple of weeks, before he found some stop-gap work. While it’s been tough, I don’t expect their employers to keep them on because they have been with them for a lot of years, and neither did they. There are many avenues to take when one loses his/her job, but we would be in big trouble if we as a City or as businesses keep people on simply because they have been working for the organization for a long time. That is not how our economy works. Although it could be how it breaks down.
I brought up this issue at the CBC forum on Saturday but received vague answers from the panelists. Falls Church City is the only jurisdiction I know of which provides refuse collection services without charging for them. The practice in all surrounding jurisdictions is to charge the property tax rate then add on the charge for refuse collection, leaf collection, etc. For example Fairfax is adds on $345, Arlington $325, Alexandria $339, and so on. Fairfax County only provides collection services to 12% of households providing the rest with a list of providers so that they may arrange for collection at their own expense. In many jurisdictions including Prince William and Loudoun collections the responsibility of the homeowner. If the City of Falls Church continued to provide this service at $350 per household it would generate about $1.05 MILLION badly needed dollars to help offset the operations of the public works department. If it wishes it could phase out the department and allow residents to arrange for a private provider. Allowing this situation to continue as long as it has has contributed to our current problem. How long can THE LITTLE CITY continue to provide at no additional cost what nearly every other municipality expects its citizens to pay for? In the immortal words of Deandre Cole of Saturday Night Live….What Up With That?
I was following the post back and forth along the way, trying to figure out where George was going to come out on the issue at the end. I’m still not sure exactly what he’s saying but he ends with a whopper. My interpretation is that he’s saying if we outsource garbage collection it means we don’t care about workforces and so we shouldn’t strive to have workforces housing in the City.
This seems like very flawed logic to me. I think that running an organization (like a City government) inefficiently because individuals would suffer otherwise is just the wrong way to approach it. When is inefficiency ever good?
Maybe the City can strike a deal with whoever we outsource to and see if some of our workers could pick up jobs at the new place?
I own a business and nothing is more heartbreaking than having to let go of hard working employees – but sometimes that’s how things work out.
Steve: I was one of those panelists with a vague answer. Sorry about that. My point was that I didn’t want us to go the route of Fairfax which nickels and dimes for each and every little service. That said, your statement that the City is providing services “without charging for them” is just wrong to me. We ARE charging for them, we’re just not breaking that specific cost out as a line item. I thought what you were really looking for is more transparency in terms of costs, which is definitely always good.
John, I’m just trying to compare apples to apples. When someone compares our tax rate to one of the other areas the comparison is skewed by the fact that we collect nothing beyond the tax rate while providing this additional service to approximately 3000 customers. The others charge the posted tax rate but collect ADDITIONAL money to pay for the budget required to collect and dispose of the trash. The fact that we doing it this way has been blowing a $1,000,000 dollar hole in the city budget each year for the past 10 years or longer!
Using generalized numbers I think what we’re saying is that in Falls Church the tax rate is $1.07 (not for long) but in Fairfax County it is $0.95 (or whatever the real number is) – but in Falls Church you get trash pickup for that price and in Fairfax County you don’t. So, you could consider the Falls Church tax rate to be $1.03 (or something) plus a trash collection fee of $0.04 – or you could consider Fairfax County’s rate to be $1.00 (or whatever) if you rolled trash collection into that number.
There are two issues here:
1. Are we paying more than we should (as a community) for trash collection? This issue is being addressed by considering the option to outsource to a more efficient operation.
2. Should the cost of trash collection be split out as a per-household fee as opposed to being something that comes out of the general funds? I think Ron pointed out that you have to be careful about this approach because right now someone living in a really expensive house is paying proportionally more than someone living in a really inexpensive house for trash service (and everything else) but if we move to a fee based system then everyone will be paying the same (or, I suppose, different amounts if the new system is also based on how much trash you throw out). I suppose the change could be good or bad depending on your perspective.
It sounds like issue #2 isn’t likely to get addressed in the short term – but issue #1 has a good chance of being in play ASAP.
The rate in Fairfax County for 2010 is $1.04 + $345 “Refuse Collection”, .015 leaf collection, .024 fir those living in the McLean Community Center District which is like our beautiful CC.
I was not on the panel, but I do agree with the comments that we should break out the charges separately. Some council members are concerned this will look like a tax increase in disguise, but I do not think we can find a disguise big enough for what is going to happen this year in any event. In the corporate world what happens is that a company will restate its results, so I would propose we add the 2¢ or whatever it is, and when we compare the taxes we adjust the prior years to reflect apples to apples.
According to staff we will save about 1¢ on the tax dollar and potentially get better, or at least faster service. However, the answers to the question if this is truly “apples to apples” were not satisfactory, because staff compared budget to budget rather than actual expenditures, and currently we have 10 positions in DES, of which 5 are unfilled and frozen.
More broadly, I also strongly support a variable rate structure that incentivizes environmental stewardship. People like me whose family generates a larger amount of refuse should pay more, although for the same reason we should limit the fee in the case of recycling as opposed to trash heading for the landfill. Something simple, like each receptacle costs $XX per year for weekly service, with no charge or a much smaller charge for recycling receptacles.
Even more broadly, my company’s Prince WIlliam tax bill has a base tax @ $1.212, fire and rescue @ .0746, Gypsy moth @ .0025, transportation district @ .02, PLUS stormwater and solid waste fees which while not stated in pennies amount to an additional .0472 + .197, which means a tax rate of $1.55+. It is a shame nobody answered that question, because while CBC does not take policy positions, there is a significant issue of transparency here, since we could be accused of burying these fees in one large undigestible tax rate. The same goes for my question which I did not get to ask about how a school funding formula would work.
I personally don’t want to see it broken out separately because then I would view it as a tax increase in disguise. As one who does not have children in the school system (and this is nothing against the system which I agree helps real estate values), I believe my trash pick-up should already be included in my annual, very high, taxes.
And, if we do outsource everything – which I am not suggesting, just pondering – why would we need affordable housing for our workers?
A quick response to vlfrance’s final question – I think there’s value in having affordable housing for all level of workers for our local businesses, not just our City employees. This is why I suggested tweaking the current lottery formula to give an even higher priority to people who work in the City (even if they don’t work for the City) than people with no association with the City.
I’m still a little confused by what people are saying about the tax rate and how it applies to garbage (and the other services). Right now we pay $1.07 and that includes all these services. Those services cost money. We’re paying for them now. If we split out the cost of those services (either as direct fees or as separately itemized parts of our real estate tax, as they seem to do in other jurisdictions) it just helps us better see where the money is being spent. As Dan mentions, we’re going to see a big tax increase whether we’re splitting out what it’s going towards or not.
I guess the flaw in the thinking (as I see it) is that people are looking at our $1.07 (soon to be $1.27 or more, I guess) and saying that it’s a high rate (which it is). But I assume they’re comparing it to the rates people pay in other places. If those rates don’t include costs like garbage collection then it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison.
So, to use more specific numbers (thanks Steve), if you live in the McLean Community Center District of Fairfax County your tax rate is $1.04 + $0.015 (for leaves) + $0.024 (for the community center). If your house is worth $600k then I *think* the $345 in trash fees could be translated to $0.0575 on your tax rate. So, their tax rate is $1.1365 – as compared to our $1.07. Sounds like our tax rate is lower than parts of Fairfax County.
@ Dan Maller: Thank you for clarifying that the $200,000 “savings” resulting from privatizing trash pickup presumes that 10 City positions would be eliminated, when in fact five of those positions are already unfilled and frozen. I have corrected my column to reflect that info. But now I’m really upset: Assuming those 5 unfilled positions would otherwise cost the City $35,000 each (including SS, health care, pension contribution, unemployment insurance, etc.), that equals $175,000. So the City is ALREADY saving $175,000 through the reduced staff. That means the additional savings from privatizing could be more reasonably calculated at $25,000 instead of $200,000. If I am understanding this correctly, and if I have the figures correct, then I will state right here that the presentation by the City administration to the City Council appears to be much worse than just misleading. Again, I congratulate the City Council for their wary reaction, making it clear that they weren’t going to just accept the stated numbers.
This reminds me of a similar incident last year when the City administration claimed to Council that eliminating the GEORGE bus would save $600,000 in the budget. Only after repeated articles in the Falls Church Times did the administration recant and admit that $250,000 of that money came from a state subsidy that would be lost upon discontinuing GEORGE. And then, come to think of it, it was you, Mr. Maller, who devised a way to continue GEORGE another year at minimal budget expense. We are going to miss you on the Council — although you still have until March 2 to change your mind!
George, You seem like a REALLY angry guy! You are fond of comparing our taxes to those of our neighbors, how would you address the shortfall between what it costs to collect and dispose of the trash and the amount collected or not collected from the residential customers?
GEORGE SOUTHERN REPLIES: Steve, you’re right — I do get mad when I see deliberate subterfuge. In fact I’m considering changing the name of my column to MAD ABOUT TOWN.
There’s only so much that can be said in 800 words, but to answer your question, when we lived in Brussels we had to buy little garbage sacks with tax stamps on them. It was amazing how little trash our neighborhood generated — and it was a wealthy area of the city. I support the concept.
And when we lived in Mexico, the garbage men came around to “collect” from each resident, even though they received a (pitifully low) salary from the government. Fail to pay the garbage man directly, and your garbage stayed right on the sidewalk.
I have an idea. Let’s tell O’bomber to bring our troops home, saving our country billions and billions of dollars on illegal and immoral wars. Just think what we could do with the saving! Maybe we could have living wages and healthcare for everyone.
Think of all the Aghan and Iraqi women, children, and babies we would not have to kill too — not to mention the men.
George,
One little correction to your original article. As you know, we both live on the same street. The week before the Wednesday you saw the trash men, I read somewhere in an E-mail that the trash would be picked up on schedule. I consequently put out my trash bags and green bin during the snow storm that Tuesday night. While I was climbing on the snowdrift to put my trash bags where the trash men could see them, a neighbor walked by. He asked me what I was doing. I told him what I had read. That Wednesday my bags were pretty much snow covered and I noted the same neighbor had also put his trash out. Sometime thereafter, my trash, and my neighbor’s trash, was taken away by somebody. My green bin was still full, but our trash was gone. I assumed it was taken by the trash men as promised – but if it was not them but some other kind passerby, thank you very much!
GEORGE SOUTHERN REPLIES: Thanks Lloyd — further confirmation that the City trash collectors are par excellence!
Our sanitation engineers are among the hardest working guys in this city. Heck, all the “white uniformed” crew are the best in terms of putting in a full day’s work . They are friendly, helpful, always pleasant, and working when “on the clock.” On the other hand, take a stroll around City Hall. IF computer time were truly monitored, one would be surprised. If phone calls were ALL business, and work was ALL work, some offices wouldn’t have to be lit up beyond quitting time! If time cards were punched in all those offices, well, some comings and goings would change. If other uniformed workers were accountable for ALL twelve hours, well…
Okay, I tend to avoid these back and forth events but I see articulate people making various points that all sound reasonable… let me add my two-cents.
My understanding is that the five or seven or whatever the number of City trash handlers will be offered interviews with the new hauler. Or, they may be offered positions that are currently vacant within the City’s public works department (hiring freeze applying only to new staff, not movement within City staff?).
My understanding is also, that rather than work harder the trash handlers will get to work with trucks that do the heavy lifting and emptying of the cart (if the City opts to include the carts in the contract). To me this means that the new work environment will have less back breaking, smelly aspects.
My understanding is also that the curbside pickup will occur on one day for the whole City rather than the four that are needed now. Perhaps the trash handlers will get to work in other communities, closer to home on one or all of the other four days of the week if they chose to leave City employment.
I expect that on that one day, trucks will be prevalent in the City, on the rest of the days of the week, there will not be idling heavy equipment in front of our homes or impeding traffic.
I expect that trash haulers that chose to go with the contract service for employment will enjoy fewer holidays, and may not have as comprehensive a health plan. I also do not think that our City officials would have reported the positions they would interview for have the same or better pay if this were not the case. All of us, who are not government workers, would like more paid holidays and better insurance… I would like to be ten years younger and a few pounds lighter, too. Just because we want something, doesn’t mean its a travesty not to get it, or to loose it.
I digress.
City taxes do pay for trash, recycling, brush, leaf, and special pickups. It IS a travesty that we continue to operate with the lack of transparency (nice term, I borrowed from above, says it well) regarding how much these services cost. Our elected leaders (current and previous) are, for some reason, satisfied with coddling our citizens. Why does house A pay a higher electric bill than house B? Because they use more! Why does a family with five children by more groceries than a home with a couple? Because they eat more! Why shouldn’t those that cannot manage to keep their weekly trash volume to a cart (and I understand they could be 65 gallons that is more than double the size of a typical trash can) be expected to place a tag or sticker on the extra bag they place at the curb (a la bagged brush is now). This has been brought up and shut down over and over again… including this round. Especially when these added expenses can be avoided with a little effort (e.g. recycling rather than trashing things, buying items with less packaging etc)
The City needs to:
1. opt for contract hauling – to save money and fuel and to increase efficiency
2. do everything it can to make the transition seamless for current City trash handlers via offers within the public works department and providing employee letters of recommendation to the contract company as appropriate
3. address the inequity involved with the status quo where City residents who do not get City curbside pick up (and there are plenty of them) do not have their part of their property tax refunded that would go toward curbside pick up
4. motivate those with curbside pick up to recycle ALL that they can by providing a companion recycle cart, so that we get paid for the resources we are conserving and reduce the trash we are paying to dump at the landfill
I had family members that lived in southern Florida. I saw the annual municipal tax bill that arrived one year. Two pages of itemized elements with the portion/rate of tax for each service stated. So much for Police, so much for EMS, so much for trash, community services…on and on. It was the first, and only, time I saw a tax bill with so much detail. It was a little overwhelming but it really hammered home the LOS and the cost for each.
The issue of charging separately for trash pickup has relevance for me not as a tool for solving budget problems, but as a common sense tool for improving our environment (as over 6000 communities around the country have figured out). Right now, the “perceived” cost of trash pickup is zero (costs you the same whether you put out no bags of trash, or 12). As a result, people make the effort to recycle only for civic duty or concern for the environment, but not for economic reasons. Unbundling charges for trash gives them an economic incentive to minimize trash and maximize recycling (which can be sold for some income). Yes, there are equity issues, and budget issues, but at the end of the day, it is a better environment that is the winning argument. We are the best in our state at recycling, but we are below benchmark cities such as Portland OR. Unbunding charges for trash collection (endorsed by EPA and Wall Street Journal) is one means of achieving further improvement.
Selecting a private firm to provide trash and recycling services at a lower rate than we now pay seems like good business sense. Especially when surrounding communities have adopted outsourcing (which include carts) and are pleased with the services.
It is my understanding that the City Management is asking the Council for approval to: 1. out source, 2.establish an enterprise fund.
The Pay-As-You-Throw concept has merit. But, if trash and recycling is taken out of the City general budget, I would consider this a tax increase.
As a City resident, I would then be billed (as a utility) and pay into the enterprise fund about $350.00 to $400.00 a year for trash and recycling services. This fund would probably be set up as a business. Charges and services could flucuate with the economy as determined by City management.
I’d like to know what other services are being considered for removal from the General Budget.
A million dollars would be a big boost to the deficit budget and I can understand why this proposal is so very tempting.
It does have merit but, as you suggest, we should recognize it as a tax increase – unless the CM is able to show how the staff and other costs will be reapplied elsewhere in the budget. In tough economic times, it is part of a more general move to shift costs to the taxpayer while protecting the budget base.
Let’s contract out the city council, city manager and special correspondents to the Falls Church Times while we are at it. These are people and their jobs – not numbers to be thrown around. Let the schools become privately owned and the city can continue to exist – otherwise just call us the “Little Annex of Arlington”
I just looked at the agenda for Monday’s work session…is it a done deal that we will use a contractor for the next 8 years? Is there info about any separate charges (tax disguised as a fee) for our trash pick up?