Minutes - Council - 09/25/1990 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Case /19: Receive Bids and Implement City.wide Curbside Recycling Program Finance Officer Sandra Ashley stated her involvement with this case was primarily with the financial aspect of it. She stated the City Council had authorized City Staff to advertise for bids for the recycling program. City Staff was directed to solicit bids from contractors based upon whether they did the billing for the service or what the cost would be if the City did the billing for the service. The lowest bidder with contractor billing the residents was BFI with a bid of $2.15 and the lowest bidder with the City performing the billing function was Ace Sanitation with $1.15 per month. These bids were for bi-monthly pick-ups. Ms. Ashley addressed a number of pending issues related to the curb-side recycling program. Issue #1) What revenue sources are available for the cost of the City-wide recycling program? The City's Landfill Tipping Fee Fund currently has an undesignated balance of $646,000.00 so the recycling program could be funded from tipping fee revenue, however, due to uncertain future tipping fee revenue, the City needs to look for other ways to generate revenues for future programs or expenditures She explained that staff recommends funding the contracted service costs for the fu'st six months of the program (October, 1990 through March 31, 1991) from the Landfill Tipping Fee. These expenditures for 3,500 households would total $24,150.00.. Ms. Ashley stated that the Finance Office had reviewed software, staffing, equipment and supply needs for a City-wide billing system. She explained that the City's current software will meet the billing needs; however, the current cash receipting process is manual. With an increase of 3500 payments per quarter, the system should be computerized. The software cost would be approximately $5,000.00. She also explained that the City's supplier, ComputoService, doesn't have this type of software, however, Business Records in St. Cloud would possibly have the type of software needed and they may be less expensive than other suppliers. Ms. Ashley continued with Issue #2) If residents are to be charged for this service, will the contractor bill residents directly or will the City perform this function? Finance Officer Ashley explained that if the City does the billing, the difference in bid cost is $1.00 per month per household. On an annual basis, this difference would total $42,000.00 ($1.00 times 12 months times 3500 households. Councilmember Cich commented that with 3500 homes, the $1.00 difference comes to $14,000.00, minus $3500.00 in stamps comes to $9,500.00 and the City couldn't hire anybody to do the billing for that rate. It would be a lot cheaper than an additional system to help with the billing. Councilmember DeLuca stated that the $1.00 per month had to be taken times the 3500 households and the total comes to $42,000.00. Ms. Ashley commented that Councilmember Cich was making reference to the 30¢ difference in BFI's bid. BFI bid $2.15 if they did the billing and $1.85 if the City did the billing. Councilmember Cich declared that the ultimate goal was to get the recyclable products into the buckets and out on the street and not cost the City money. Councilmember Cich stated he feels the City shouldn't purchase more software right now. Ms. Ashley stated she was in agreement with his statement and that it was not her recommendation to do so. She stated she is looking at the most effective utilization of the staff and equipment the City already has. Ms. Ashley stated that with quarterly billing, part-time temporary help would be utilized for entering the data base required initially and then maintaining with master file changes, sending out past due notices and general file maintenance. This could be done in the early morning or evening hours with supervision done by a current full-time member of the Finance Office to City Council/September 25, 1990 Page 11 of 20