When the State of Oklahoma changed its laws on commercial drivers licensing, it put the city of Watonga in a bind. The change requires drivers to take a class that costs about $6,000. That put Watonga behind the 8-ball because it would either be forced to hire trash truck drivers with an existing CDL, at wages of between $25--$50 an hour or put their drivers through the class at $6,000 a whack. And classes are quickly filled with waiting lists, trying to meet the demand for truck drivers.
That pushed a decision on the city that it was perhaps hoping could wait till some point down the road, the decision on whether to continue to operate its own garbage collection service or hire a contractor.
“The choice was to allocate more funds (for the trash service) or see what a contract would cost,” said City Manager Karrie Beth Little. “If it stays as is, we have to raise trash rates immediately. We decided to see what a contract would be and then evaluate.”
The city created specifications for a contract and sent those specs out to bid.
Changing to a contractor has been discussed by the city over the years, but nothing came of the matter until now. The city pays the cost of maintaining the trucks and other equipment, replacing poly carts and dumpsters and the cost of disposing of the collected trash. Additionally, the street and alley department is stretched thin trying to run trash routes while maintaining streets and alleys in an acceptable condition. It isn’t easy to hire employees to work the trash routes, either.
“It was talked about for years, but with the (new) state law coming into effect, this is the tipping point,” Little said.
The specifications were approved at a September city council meeting, but the window for returning bids was too short for companies to analyze and send in their cost quotes. So the city sent out a second request for proposals with a longer bid window.
Little said there has been noted interest in the contract. Bids are due back to the city no later than Nov. 9.
There will not be a curbside recycling option because it was cost prohibitive, Little said, a cost that would have to be passed on to the customers.
“That’s not what the city is about, adding fees to the customers,” she added.
The proposal will include curbside pickup from poly carts, but alley pickup and residential dumpsters will be discontinued, if the city decides to farm out the garbage collection.
And the price? “There could be a rate increase,” Little acknowledged. “But we will minimize it as much as possible.”
There are companies, she noted, that handle garbage collection and do a good job of it.
“And that’s what we want, the best service we can provide.”