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Another deficit in city-run garbage pickup has some councillors questioning if the city should stop automatically giving municipal public servants the work without having a contract competition.
“I don’t think the city should automatically do much of anything, especially when the results haven’t achieved what was hoped for, so no, we shouldn’t automatically do that. We should be giving careful scrutiny to it,” Coun. David Chernushenko said Tuesday after an environment committee meeting, where councillors received the latest financial audit of in-house garbage collection.
The audit results for the year ending Oct. 31, 2017 show the downtown collection zone had a $463,869 deficit. The east Ottawa zone had a deficit of $608,022.
The downtown zone — referred to as Zone 3, one of five collection zones — has had annual operating deficits in all but one year between 2013 and 2017. The cumulative total in that time is a roughly $1.6-million operating deficit.
The downtown zone is noteworthy since it was council in August 2011 that decided the downtown collection zone should be automatically awarded to in-house workers without having a contract competition. The in-house team had registered surpluses between 2006 and 2010 in the zone after winning a contract competition, so council took a shot at sole-sourcing the work to municipal staff, based on excellent financial performance.
The other four collection zones each had a contract competition. Three of those went to private contractors. The city awarded the in-house team with the other one in east Ottawa. (The in-house team actually out-bid the private sector in another zone, but the city decided to award the contract to a private provider to reduce the work burden on the municipality.)
The east Ottawa zone has had annual operating deficits in three of five years, with a cumulative deficit total of about $1.1 million.
The city blames the cost overruns on increased expenses for labour, fleet and fuel. The warranties expired on the garbage truck fleet, inflating maintenance costs, and a labour arbitration has forced the city to use full-time garbage workers for overtime work, rather than calling on subcontractors.
The current contracts started in October 2012. All city garbage contracts are scheduled to end May 31, 2019. After the municipal election this Oct. 22, one of council’s most pressing jobs will be to sort out the city’s waste strategy and collection contracts.
Despite the multi-year operating deficits, the city lauds the results of the in-house garbage collection zones, particularly in east Ottawa, because the costs are still lower than the next-closest private sector bid. There’s no way to know that for the downtown zone, since it wasn’t put to tender in 2011.
The report for the environment committee and council doesn’t say much about that downtown zone.
Not a single question came from the environment committee about the collection contracts during a meeting on Tuesday.
Of course, how the city contracts out garbage collection in some areas and keeps the service in-house in others isn’t exactly a savoury election-year topic.
After the meeting, Coun. Scott Moffatt said the city will need to consider the deficits, especially for the in-house downtown zone.
“What that tells me is that when this comes up in 2019-2020 for the contract to be renewed, maybe we need to be putting Zone 3 out for tender as well,” Moffatt said.
There has been apprehension on the garbage file during this term of council and it wasn’t until last fall that council started looking harder at waste issues, leading recently to the planned changes to the green bin program, which will accept plastic bags and dog feces in mid-2019.
Chernushenko, chair of the environment committee, said the city has been behind in waste management because it’s been waiting for the provincial government to establish new rules. With a change in provincial government, finalizing those rules could take even longer.
Moffatt doesn’t buy it as an excuse.
“I think there are things we could have been doing this term on the waste file that could have been more productive than hitching our wagon to a provincial process,” Moffatt said, pointing to the city’s inaction in finding a long-term garbage-processing solution after the agreement with Plasco Energy Group fell through in 2015.
As Moffatt pointed out, the environment committee has instead debated smaller garbage issues, like it did on Tuesday when councillors directed staff to consult with local festivals about implementing recycling programs.
jwilling@postmedia.com
twitter.com/JonathanWilling
查看原文...
“I don’t think the city should automatically do much of anything, especially when the results haven’t achieved what was hoped for, so no, we shouldn’t automatically do that. We should be giving careful scrutiny to it,” Coun. David Chernushenko said Tuesday after an environment committee meeting, where councillors received the latest financial audit of in-house garbage collection.
The audit results for the year ending Oct. 31, 2017 show the downtown collection zone had a $463,869 deficit. The east Ottawa zone had a deficit of $608,022.
The downtown zone — referred to as Zone 3, one of five collection zones — has had annual operating deficits in all but one year between 2013 and 2017. The cumulative total in that time is a roughly $1.6-million operating deficit.
The downtown zone is noteworthy since it was council in August 2011 that decided the downtown collection zone should be automatically awarded to in-house workers without having a contract competition. The in-house team had registered surpluses between 2006 and 2010 in the zone after winning a contract competition, so council took a shot at sole-sourcing the work to municipal staff, based on excellent financial performance.
The other four collection zones each had a contract competition. Three of those went to private contractors. The city awarded the in-house team with the other one in east Ottawa. (The in-house team actually out-bid the private sector in another zone, but the city decided to award the contract to a private provider to reduce the work burden on the municipality.)
The east Ottawa zone has had annual operating deficits in three of five years, with a cumulative deficit total of about $1.1 million.
The city blames the cost overruns on increased expenses for labour, fleet and fuel. The warranties expired on the garbage truck fleet, inflating maintenance costs, and a labour arbitration has forced the city to use full-time garbage workers for overtime work, rather than calling on subcontractors.
The current contracts started in October 2012. All city garbage contracts are scheduled to end May 31, 2019. After the municipal election this Oct. 22, one of council’s most pressing jobs will be to sort out the city’s waste strategy and collection contracts.
Despite the multi-year operating deficits, the city lauds the results of the in-house garbage collection zones, particularly in east Ottawa, because the costs are still lower than the next-closest private sector bid. There’s no way to know that for the downtown zone, since it wasn’t put to tender in 2011.
The report for the environment committee and council doesn’t say much about that downtown zone.
Not a single question came from the environment committee about the collection contracts during a meeting on Tuesday.
Of course, how the city contracts out garbage collection in some areas and keeps the service in-house in others isn’t exactly a savoury election-year topic.
After the meeting, Coun. Scott Moffatt said the city will need to consider the deficits, especially for the in-house downtown zone.
“What that tells me is that when this comes up in 2019-2020 for the contract to be renewed, maybe we need to be putting Zone 3 out for tender as well,” Moffatt said.
There has been apprehension on the garbage file during this term of council and it wasn’t until last fall that council started looking harder at waste issues, leading recently to the planned changes to the green bin program, which will accept plastic bags and dog feces in mid-2019.
Chernushenko, chair of the environment committee, said the city has been behind in waste management because it’s been waiting for the provincial government to establish new rules. With a change in provincial government, finalizing those rules could take even longer.
Moffatt doesn’t buy it as an excuse.
“I think there are things we could have been doing this term on the waste file that could have been more productive than hitching our wagon to a provincial process,” Moffatt said, pointing to the city’s inaction in finding a long-term garbage-processing solution after the agreement with Plasco Energy Group fell through in 2015.
As Moffatt pointed out, the environment committee has instead debated smaller garbage issues, like it did on Tuesday when councillors directed staff to consult with local festivals about implementing recycling programs.
jwilling@postmedia.com
twitter.com/JonathanWilling
查看原文...
