43
Youngstown council agrees to spending $100,000 more on residential garbage program
YOUNGSTOWN
City council agreed to increase spending by up to $100,000 for the city’s new residential garbage-collection program to cover the costs of temporary workers.
Finance Director David Bozanich told council members Wednesday if the program stays the way it is, the cost to collect garbage will be less expensive in 2017 and into the future than it is this year.
Administration officials said they didn’t anticipate the additional cost of hiring eight temporary workers when collections began May 2.
The city is renting eight garbage trucks for about $96,000 for May and this month while waiting for the eight trucks it purchased to arrive in a few weeks. The board of control April 20 approved spending up to $104,000 for the rental trucks.
The rental trucks permit garbage to be dumped only into the back of the vehicles, so eight temporary workers had to be hired at a cost of about $6,000 a week, said Charles Shasho, deputy director of public works.
Council agreed to approve the $100,000 expense for the temporary workers.
In addition to rear dumping, the trucks being purchased by the city will have the ability to dump garbage into the side from specialized 96-gallon bins the city purchased for its 22,000 residential customers, Shasho said.
The cost for the trucks is $2,455,200 and the bins will cost $1,149,542. The city is paying the cost for those purchases over a 10-year period.
When the new trucks and bins are being used by the end of July, the city won’t need the temporary workers, Shasho and Bozanich said.
With the rental trucks and temporary workers, the cost to operate the city-run garbage program is projected to be $2,370,851 for the first year, according to a cost analysis made by city administration officials.
When those two expenses are gone, the city will spend $2,174,851 annually for residential garbage collection, the cost analysis says.
“Next year, you won’t be coming back to us for another $100,000?” asked Councilwoman Anita Davis, D-6th.
Unless additional services, such as leaf collection, aren’t added, Bozanich said administrators won’t ask for more money.
The city paid $2.3 million last year to have Waste Management Inc. handle its residential garbage collection. But when seeking a new contract, the lowest proposal was for about $3 million resulting in the city taking over collecting garbage.
Also, council approved allowing the board of control to sign deals to sell city-owned property 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.
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 invest $1 million to 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 of $150,000.
Council also approved a two-year contract with Youngstown State University’s Regional Economic Development Initiative to assist city departments with applying for grants. The university will receive up to $200,000 a year under the deal.