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Youngstown council will consider increasing funding by $100,000 today for city-run residential garbage collection
Funds needed to pay temporary workers
YOUNGSTOWN
The administration will ask city council today to authorize spending up to an additional $100,000 for Youngstown’s residential garbage-collection program that’s only a month old.
The money is to pay eight temporary workers between May and July who are assisting those hired by the city on a permanent basis to collect garbage, city officials say.
The city is spending about $6,000 a week to pay the temporary workers who were hired through an employment firm, said Abigail Beniston, the city’s code-enforcement and blight-remediation superintendent. The city is paying $14.49 an hour for the workers with that increasing to $21.74 an hour in overtime, she said.
The workers are costing the city $4,637 a week in salary with overtime making up the rest of the expense.
At $6,000 a week, the city will spend about $72,000 for the temporary workers for last month, this month and July.
“We don’t expect to come anywhere near [$100,000], but it gives us a cushion,” Beniston said. “After July, we will absolutely not use” the temps.
The city started its own garbage-collection service for its 22,000 residential customers May 2.
The decision was made when the city sought a new contract with a private garbage hauler, and saw the price jump from $2.3 million a year to about $3 million.
The city decided to create its own garbage-collection program with an original annual operating estimate of $2,111,000, said city Finance Director David Bozanich.
With the additional cost of the temporary workers and rental trucks, the annual operating cost will increase to about $2.3 million this year, he said.
That’s about what the city paid Waste Management Inc. for garbage collection last year, but is considerably less than the cost of staying with a private hauler, Bozanich said.
“We’ve been at it for only a month,” he said. “We’re doing it for pretty much the same cost” as we did under the Waste Management contract. “We believe the productivity will greatly improve with the new trucks and bins. But we’re [basing that] on what others have experienced.”
The city had startup expenses in addition to salary and benefits for its garbage-collection employees and dumping fees.
The city purchased eight new garbage trucks that allow trash to be dumped into the back and the side for a little more than $2.4 million. Those trucks will arrive in the middle of this month. The city also spent more than $1.1 million for 22,000 96-gallon garbage bins for its residential customers. The bins will be distributed during the second half of July, Beniston said.
When the new trucks and garbage bins are used, the time it takes to collect with one person on a truck will be faster than what the city is using now and what Waste Management did, said Charles Shasho, deputy director of the city’s public-works department.
While waiting for those garbage trucks and bins to arrive, the city is renting eight trucks for $104,000. Garbage only can be dumped into the rear of the rented trucks, requiring the city to hire the temporary workers in order to speed up the process, Shasho said.
“If we had more time, we would have had a better plan for transition,” he said. “We rented very inefficient trucks.”
Also at today’s meeting, council will consider legislation for two projects.
One is to sell 1.4 acres for $10 on Andrews Avenue to Youngstown Specialty Metals for the company’s $800,000 expansion project. The company, which supplies speciality cold-rolled strip steel, is also planning to also buy private property on Andrews Avenue. The company will use the two new properties to build a 10,000-square-foot, $800,000 structure as part of an expansion project, said T. Sharon Woodberry, the city’s director of community planning and economic development.
Youngstown Specialty employs seven workers and plans to add two more, she said.
The other project is to sell the former Bottom Dollar grocery store on 5.1 acres on Glenwood Avenue for $150,000 to ONE Health Ohio, which will open a medical facility there. The property is appraised at $375,000, and the terms of the development deal have the city selling it for the reduced price, Woodberry said.
The agency will spend $1 million to convert the former grocery store. ONE Health will hire 10 to 15 employees for the South Side location and provide medical, dental and behavioral health services with a focus on lower-income people.
ONE Health operates six other health care facilities, including the Youngstown Community Health Center on Wick Avenue on the North Side.