Ever since the August 13th public hearing on the City of Fishers’ proposed trash collection contract, there have been comments, then and since, about the $2 per month, per resident, administrative fee. When this was raised at the August 13th hearing, Mayor Scott Fadness said this fee is needed to provide support and customer service required for the city to do its work in establishing and running the city’s side of the proposed pact with Republic.
“The City of Fishers will manage and administer the billing of residential units, as a part of the city-wide trash contract.” Fishers says in its Web posting.. “In effectively providing billing services and related customer support, a $2 administration fee is included in the proposed monthly trash rates. The $2 administration fee is NOT an additional fee to the proposed rates, but is already included in the proposed rates.”
There have been a number of comments online and in public hearings about where the $2 per month fee would go. The city provided a listing of how the revenue from this administrative fee would be utilized by the city. The breakdown, provided by the city, is available above. Below are the proposed monthly rates for each year in the 10-year contract proposal with Republic.
14% overhead seems awfully high.
Ok — let’s put this into some sort of daily perspective —
The city charging $2 -per MONTH is less than 1 coffee at Starburnts coffee… most people will spend more in a month on something frivolous like concert “convenience” fees, some weird snack item at Saraga, or accept the “fuel charge” that both Republic and WM put on their current waste pickup.
Of course there’s going to be something for the city…and we ought to be happy that “we the people” are actually being looked after by the elected officials. I wasn’t a big fan of the last push on a city wide contract, but this time is different. I think they’ve been as open as the process will allow and that we’re getting a pretty decent deal for the next 10 years. (For what it’s worth…I’ve got WM and pay about $35/month for 1 bin and crappy customer service….I’m ready for a change)
Has the “software and technology” portion been explained in any more detail? I was under the impression this would be added to the existing Fishers Muniservice web portal used to pay for sewer and stormwater bills, which I think is a service through Tyler Tech. Is that still the case?
To that point (as it was also my impression that these would be combined with the sewer/stormwater), why would there be additional mailing costs for physical billing/delinquency notices? That cost alone is 48% of the total – $370,800. You quickly get down to a more reasonable $1/month admin fees if the city simply combines the physical billing/notices with the mailings of these other services, since they already provide physical bills for those.
And that’s still allowing for the $71,040 for the other notices and mail communications, which might also be able to be consolidated.
At least there is a calculation supporting the figure. Still wondering how Carmel does it for so much cheaper though. With almost half the cost earmarked for postage, will those of us who are enrolled in paperless billing receive a credit? I would rather see a surcharge for those who aren’t opted into paperless billing than charge everyone equally.
This $2 is twice as high as the next nearest city’s overhead cost. Zionsville charges $.25/month. Westfield pays $12.93/month and Waste Management administers the payments (not the city). People pay Waste Management direct – eliminating the need for the city to spend $771,000 a year on overhead. This whole thing, while it is the right thing, just seems rushed and we’re getting a bad deal.
I second that. They need to slow down and thing this through better.