19 - Renewing the Landfill Services Agreement with Waste Connections, Inc.

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From these calculations, we can see the added cost annually to have to travel to other landfills. This is completely separate from the landfill dumping fee. What this cannot show you is the eventual cost to replace trucks due to added wear and tear as well as the incredible burden it will place on staff needing to work longer hours. Once again, if we had a Transfer Station, this would be a much different conversation, but that is not an option today. Even if competitive bidding could somehow give us a better price than 20% below the average of the five listed landfills, and as discussed, that is doubtful, it would be incredibly difficult to account for the impact to staff and equipment. That will be discussed further below. Cost SummarAgalysis: When examining this situation, we must consider the added cost for landfill fees as well as the added cost for operational services. One does not impact the other but they both impact the same budget. The City has budgeted $184,000.00 under line item 45-0317-44-00 for landfill fees. We have spent approximately $160,000.00 many of the last few years, although FY20/21 is showing signs of surpassing this and being closer to the budgeted amount of $184,000.00. A 46% increase in tonnage fees pursuant to the Waste Connection renewal would add approximately $85,000.00 to our budget. The overall Sanitation budget is approximately $1.1 million, thus this is about 8% more than budgeted. The City collects an additional $300,000.00 in revenue, but this is applied towards the General Fund for related expenses (ex: road repairs, billing expenses, etc.; overall a property tax subsidy). Setting aside the landfill tonnage fee, let's look at the operational cost. To go to the next nearest landfill (Antlers, OK) would add an additional $130k to the budget before we even consider tonnage fees. Therefore, we have to perform a cost benefit analysis when it comes to procurement. Looking at Antlers, OK — in order to make a switch from the Blossom Landfill to the Antlers Landfill make sense, we would need a new tonnage fee that, when added to the new operational cost to haul the trash further, brings the new added cost to the budget to something less than $85,000.00. When you perform the calculation, we would need to receive a tonnage price of $15/ton or less. Given the average price of the other five landfills is $36.89/ton and the Waste Connection renewal is for $29.51/ton, we have every reason to believe that bids (including Waste Connection) will come in much higher. In addition, we went ahead and contacted the Antlers, OK landfill and they charge $45.00/ton. We contacted the Mt. Pleasant landfill and they charge $37.00/ton. They might negotiate that for the volume we would produce, but the point is clear — any landfill we select, we would need an unrealistic drop in our current rate to overcome the added cost for hauling trash further out than the Blossom landfill. In addition, there is question as to