City of Sioux Falls Internal Audit department makes my case for public garbage service
l3wis If you FF to about 37:00 in the above video, you will hear an interesting discussion about the Landfill audit.
I have argued for a long time that a public garbage service would save taxpayers millions of dollars a year. I have also suggested, like plowing the city streets, the city should contract those services with the major haulers that already exist in our city. Many have argued that would kill competition and would cost more.
Horse Puckey.
1) We would save on fuel costs because the haulers would be assigned certain neighborhoods and could pick up everyone’s garbage on the street at the same time
2) There would be savings in administering the billing process, it could be attached to our water/sewer bill
3) We would save money on wear and tear to our streets
4) It would help with recycling which would reduce landfill costs
5) There would be no complicated tipping fee structure with the contracted haulers, which would make landfill workers jobs less complicated
The data the internal auditor provided proves to me that the only haulers that would be put out of business are the ones that are not doing much anyway. According to their data there is 27 licensed haulers in Sioux Falls. The 4 largest put up to 72% of the waste in the landfill. The remaining haulers account for 28% of the waste which means on average each of those haulers brings in about 1.2% of the waste individually.
If the current system was really providing ‘competition’ why are 23 haulers not doing much business?
The other irony is that of the 4 major haulers, 2 of them are under similar ownership and just have different names. It’s kind of like all the odd ball tree trimming service providers in town that are owned by a handful of people.
Folks, this supposed competition you talk about doesn’t exist. Stop kidding yourself. It is time the city contracts with up to 6 different haulers, divide up the city, and start a public garbage service. Don’t take my word for it, just ask our internal auditor, I think their data makes a great case for it.