The Burlington City Council has approved a new seven-year contract to outsource its recycling program, providing some respite for burned-out city workers and allowing time to contemplate the future of waste disposal in the Queen City.
Following the 8-4 passage of a resolution on Monday night, the city will contract its recycling collection to Casella Waste Systems, a publicly traded corporation headquartered in Rutland that operates in 10 states. The deal could save the city $200,000 a year when compared to the costs of its in-house program.
Two Progressives — Councilors Melo Grant (P-Central) and Gene Bergman (P-Ward 2) — joined six Democrats to vote in favor of the measure, while Councilor Becca Brown McKnight (D-Ward 6) voted against it with three Progressives.
Despite her initial reluctance and devotion to the labor movement, Progressive Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak said she supported the plan because the city would ultimately retain oversight over the service.
“Sometimes, part of leadership is figuring out the best option that we can come up with given the constraints of the realities of finances and staff and literally, people’s bodies that we’re asking to put on the line to do this work,” she said.
In testimony before the vote, most councilors talked about how they struggled with making a decision. City workers’ support for the change and the fiscal realities facing the city pushed Grant and Bergman to shift from their initial resistance. McKnight broke from her party over concerns that, once recycling collection was privatized, it would be unlikely to return to public operation, something echoed by other councilors and members of the public.
Many councilors agreed that offloading recycling collection would be a “gamble.” But they pledged to follow through by laying the groundwork for a return to public waste collection in seven years time.
The second part of the resolution establishes a new Consolidated Collection Study Committee to examine a model for residential trash, compost and recycling pickup. The committee will be made up of two council members, one from each party; two members of the Public Works Commission; a city employee in the AFSCME union; a member of the Chittenden Solid Waste District; and residents appointed by both the council president and mayor.
Even that study committee wasn’t enough for some councilors to get behind the measure.
“Regardless of the current position of the city on this being just a seven-year pause, just a strategic retreat, there is no guarantee that this position will hold seven years from now, or at any point between now and then,” said Councilor Marek Broderick (P-Ward 8), who voted against the measure.
Burlington began curbside residential recycling in 1989 and has provided collection services since 1993. But, as the resolution approved by the council acknowledged, the program has been “chronically understaffed” over the last five years. That has required the Department of Public Works to lean on street maintenance workers to take on the job.
The city initially sought a company to agree to a five-year contract, but the initial bid from Casella, the only respondent, was prohibitively expensive. After taking feedback from the waste removal company, the contract range was expanded. Casella’s bid of $1.69 million annually could save the city nearly $200,000 on a program that costs the Department of Public Works $1.83 million each year.
The change has been discussed for more than a year and throughout, there has been reluctance to outsource the service, particularly from council Progressives. They helped pass a measure 3-1 at a November 25 meeting of the Transportation, Energy and Utilities Committee that would keep the service within the Department of Public Works.
But the workers themselves didn’t want to keep it going. In recent months, the president of the union that represents Burlington public works employees advocated for immediate changes.
AFSCME Local 1343 president Colby Delaire wrote in a January 30 letter to council that, over the past five years, the recycling program had transitioned “from a public service into an operational crisis” and that frontline workers had “reached a breaking point.” The letter described workers operating in a constant “firefighting” mode that led to increased burnout and would likely push out experienced, longtime city workers.
Delaire said workers were eager to participate in a comprehensive waste collection study, as such a program could potentially add more unionized workers. But he argued that the city would need to find a dedicated revenue stream so as to not drain the city’s general fund. The program would need the “time and resources to be built correctly,” he added.
“Our members need relief now,” Delaire wrote. “Transitioning recycling to a contractor today gives us the ‘breathing room’ to collectively design a sustainable, long-term approach to solid waste for tomorrow.”
At a Board of Finance meeting on February 17, Councilor Carter Neubieser (P-Ward 1) warned against “selling off” this segment of the city’s services. But he was the lone holdout as the board voted 4-1 to bring the resolution to the full council.
At the same meeting, Mulvaney-Stanak defended the measure as necessary.
“This does not signal a retreat from the city in terms of recycling. This is a pragmatic pause to make sure we do our due diligence in understanding what would get us a better approach to integrating our waste collection and making sure we’re in a place where we can do that from a position of strength, which is not our reality right now,” she said.
Her public works director, Chapin Spencer, agrees. In a March 9 memo to the council, he pointed to the concerns of staff that have “been on the front line keeping this recycling service going” and their request for a more “durable” solution; general interest for a broader reconsideration of the city’s waste collection services; and the expanded services Casella will offer at a slight discount compared to the city’s program.
Spencer also drew attention to the general strain his department has been dealing with after years of tight budgeting, including maintaining the city’s four dedicated recycling trucks. Despite making up less than 2 percent of the city’s 240 vehicle fleet, the trucks account for 10 percent of city technicians’ “wrench time” due to their need for “constant daily service,” he wrote.
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