Examining Presque Isle’s solid waste issues
IN THE CITY
by Jim Bennett
Last week I shared with you some information about the changes to the solid waste department and operations for 2012. As part of that communication, I shared with you the most recent history of subsidizing the tipping fees by raising property taxes to offset the cost.
For those that pay little or no taxes and generate lots of trash, the old process benefited them. For those that generated very little trash and paid average or higher property taxes, the program was unfair and cost you more than it should have. Finally, as you may recall, the additional pressure of the new debt payment in 2011 ($376,076), from the landfill expansion that began in 2007, caused the Council to review all of the solid waste policies.
In December of 2010, the Council voted to move to the current way of handling solid waste. The Pay As You Throw (PAYT) program began in March of 2011. During the months leading up to the final decision to the change, staff and the Council reviewed a great deal of data and information. The PAYT program was developed and certain projections were made based on that data.
While a lot of those projections were accurate, a few were not. Those that were not accurate played a significant role in the shortfall of the 2011 solid waste budget. More importantly, based on actual information obtained from the first few months of the program, adjustments were made. The results of those adjustments were discussed in last week’s article. This week, we will dig a little deeper into the original assumptions, especially those that did not go as expected.
The single biggest challenge in developing the PAYT program was trying to accurately predict the amount of trash each household would generate when the new program went into effect. Prior to the transition no one had an accurate estimate of exactly how much of the solid waste was coming directly from residents. Further, the city also had an equally difficult time determining the amount of trash that was coming from businesses. Prior to the transition, the solid waste was weighed when it was delivered by the hauler. Contained with the load from each hauler was trash mixed from both their commercial and residential accounts.
In forecasting the activity for the new program, it was assumed that 60 percent would come from commercial accounts or non-residential properties. Today we know that the actual amount of solid waste generated from commercial accounts last year was 68 percent. This is relatively close to the forecasted number and did not have any significant impact on the financial results of the program.
As anticipated, recycling increased. In terms of volume, it increased by nearly 50 percent. In terms of weight, the increased recycling removed 15 percent of the solid waste by weight from the waste stream. The difference in the numbers is primarily caused by the increase in recycling of plastic containers, which take up a lot of room but have hardly any weight. This was consistent with the changes that were projected.
It was projected that 66 percent, or two thirds, of citizens would use the small bags; 62 percent of the bags sold in 2011 were small. This projection came in as anticipated. Again, this had no impact on the financial performance of the program.
When looking at the overall program, all of the assumptions came in as expected, with two exceptions.
The Council made the decision to allow citizens the right to take their own trash, for a fee, directly to the landfill. The fees for this service were established at the applicable commercial tipping fee rate. It was anticipated that very few individuals would elect this option given the 17-mile round trip to the landfill from downtown Presque Isle. Much to everyone’s surprise, many did.
For the first part of the program (March to July), approximately 33 percent, or one third, of the residential solid waste arrived at the landfill by private delivery. For the rest of the year, more residents participated in the curbside collection and only 20 percent of the solid waste arrived at the landfill by private delivery. Based on the earlier trend, if it had continued, it would have caused approximately $180,000 shortfall in the projected revenue stream for the year.
It was assumed that very little of the solid waste would disappear out of the system since many of our neighboring communities participate in the PAYT program. Waste illegally put into dumpsters would still end up at the landfill. Unlike many of the 100-plus communities in Maine that use a similar system, the ability of the trash to shift into another community’s waste stream seemed pretty limited.
In August, the analysis for the few months of the program forecasted that approximately 1,000 tons of solid waste could not be accounted for. In other words, the total waste, including the increase in recycling, was reduced by 1,000 tons. There was some limited investigation to see if any of the neighboring solid waste systems were seeing significant increases that could possibly account for the missing 1,000 tons. There were none reported. This reduction, if it continued, would cause another $270,000 shortfall in the revenue stream. Thankfully, over the remaining months of the year, the trend did not continue at the same pace. While the financial impacts were less, there was still an impact.
In recognizing these two areas that the assumptions were not met, the adopted budget incorporated changes to deal with them. Otherwise, the financial shortfall that was experienced in 2011 would continue into 2012.
The first issue ended up being fairly easy to deal with. The PAYT program includes the cost of providing curbside collection to each residential home in the communities served regardless if a resident participates or not. Even if a resident does not leave trash at their curbside, the haulers were still paid for collection. Since many citizens opted to take their trash directly to the landfill and not use the curbside collection, a budget shortfall was created. To remedy this situation, in 2012 the policies were changed to reflect a more accurate cost of curbside collection taking into account the portion of residents who do not use the service. This change will eliminate the budget shortfall.
The solid waste budget, like all other municipal budgets, is balanced. In fact, solid waste and the airport are considered stand-alone operations. All revenues and expenditures of the solid waste department stay within the solid waste fund. To balance the budget because of the reduction in the waste stream, a combination of reducing expenditures and increasing the revenues had to be accomplished. Both were done for the coming year.
Finally, the encouraging news is that the trends, as of the end of 2011, have all changed in a positive direction. In September, staff did a PAYT update for the benefit of the community and Council to inform everyone on how the program was performing. The update was more pessimistic than the actual end results. While the end results were better, the 2011 solid waste budget will end with a shortfall. In developing the final budget numbers, we unfortunately could not use only the positive trend of the last few months. We had to use the averages for the year to minimize the potential of having another shortfall in 2012. However, if the trends that were seen at the end of the year are indeed the continued practice, the program will be stabilized for the next few years.
I hope this series of articles is informative and assists people in understanding the inner workings of Presque Isle’s municipal government. I look forward to sharing more about other departments in the city in the upcoming weeks.
Jim Bennett is Presque Isle’s city manager. He can be reached at 760-2785 or via e-mail at jbennett@presqueisleme.us.
