The Observation Deck

Charyn

More food for thought on this.

A business has to go to city hall to buy the stickers. Inconvenience added in and time.

Should the elderly resident be compared to the small business? If we are going to count taking trash from the house to the curb, and a separate count for taking trash from the house to the dump...

As long as we are talking about elderly. My neighbor who was in his 80s used to take small little bags of trash to his cans everyday. Kept the house clean, and the bags were easy for him to carry. The collection crew would than take from the 10' from his backdoor, down the 100' driveway to the truck. Could this be considered an incentive for elderly to move or stay in Lakewood?

At a time when the entire region is looking to become one large "regional city" would it not pay huge dividends to stand out from the rest? Flower Baskets, a variety of homes, backyard collection...

just passing thoughts.


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Mark Timieski wrote:How much does the average Lakewood resident pay a year for backyard trash service?.......


What is the yearly budget?
How much do we spend on trash collection ($3.9,$4.2, $4.6 million)?

I don't think the city would save any money by elliminating back yard trash service. The only potential savings would come from a reduction in the number of people working for the refuse department. That will never happen. The time "saved" by elliminating that service would simply evaporate.

When the council tried to elliminate the part time recylcing position they were told that if that position was eliminated the City would have no choice but to pave over all of the adopt-a-spots. Does that sound like an administration that is serious about operational efficiency?

The actual budget figures for refuse and recycling are:

2003- $3,982,500
2004- $4,464.905
2005- $4,187,808
2006- $4,628,995 (projected)

A business has to go to city hall to buy the stickers. Inconvenience added in and time.

Oh - good grief - they can't do a mail program? (mumbles... grumbles...)

Should the elderly resident be compared to the small business?

I certainly considered the fact that the elderly single gentleman vs. our family of seven probably has a HUGE difference in trash volume; however, I cannot think of any reasonable way to account for that type of difference. I do think that residential and business should be kept separate, however, as residents provide the lion's share of the city budget.

Could this be considered an incentive for elderly to move or stay in Lakewood

Absolutely! Lakewood, however, has not created their marketing roadmap so we dont even know if we are marketing to seniors, young executives, families, etc., etc. If our five year plan (hahaha - sorry cant stifle the giggles thinking that there is any real plan going on here...) spells out that we intend to grow our senior population mix, then not only is backyard collection an integral part of that plan - so is the Walgreens (lots of prescriptions), apartment complexes, and lots of take-out places or delivery services...

At a time when the entire region is looking to become one large "regional city" would it not pay huge dividends to stand out from the rest? Flower Baskets, a variety of homes, backyard collection...

I dont know of anyone that wants to become one great big city with Rocky River and Fariview Park; however, that being said, I dont want to be so centrist that we isolate ourselves into oblivion. There are huge savings to be had when certain services are regionalized - provided they are properly reviewed and researched to ensure that the savings are real and not only 'skin deep'.

Personally, if we could save tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars by privatizing trash collection and put it into the building department for housing code enforcement - I'd be all for it!! It is somewhat disconcerting when I see a house with its paint flaking off in chunks the size of legal paper, overgrown weed infested lawns, shingles & gutters falling off.... but we go up the drive there to get the trash? Makes me think our priorities are not where they needs to be...

BUT

but, but, but... if we are would only save an insignificant amount - then give me those planters everyday!! Let the backyard collection continue and lets look for somewhere else to get the funds needed to beat absentee landlords into submission....



Oh - and Bill? The refuse and recycling department is pretty lean. I dont think you will find a tremendous amount of inefficiency there so reducing the number of employees is, in my opinion at least, not a viable option for generating long term savings.

FFT

Peace,
~Charyn

I see the budget for trash and recycling, but what it the overall city budget (police, fire, human services, etc.)? I’m curious as to how big the trash collection piece of pie is.

I seemed to be a conversation killer on this subject, so I thought I would stick another fork in it…

I dug around on the Internet a bit. I wasn’t able to find the current budget, but I found the budget for 2004, which should give us some rough estimates:

Municipal budget 2004: $93,687,095.00
Refuse and recycling 2004: $4,464,905.00

($93,687,095.00 / $4,464,905.00) x 100% = 4.77%

In 2004 refuse and recycling was approximately 4.77% of the entire budget.

Local income tax rate: 1.5%
Median household income (Census estimate 2000): $42,000.00

$42,000 x 1.5% = $630.00

So the median local income tax bill is approximately: $630.00

($630.00 x 4.77%) / 12 months per year = $2.50 average refuse and recycling bill per month.

I’m not sure if my calculations or reasoning is correct (please jump in if I’ve gone wrong), but it looks like the average household here is paying only $2.50 a month to have the trash removed, including backyard service!

While not everyone will be so kind to lug the trash out of the dwelling, at least Lakewood will meet us at the driveway.

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=268346

Mark Timieski wrote:($630.00 x 4.77%) / 12 months per year = $2.50 average refuse and recycling bill per month.

Mark

It seems like a great deal to me. When I went around after the storm and saw the streets that HAD all their trash on the curb until the storm and now saw it all over, I had to think 1)What a mess. 2) How much more will it cost in overtime as the trash collectors had to round it all up.

With the holiday weekend, I had the pleasure of driving through hallways of trash on three streets. It just gave me a terrible feeling. To get to Lakewood Mainstreet Business area you have to drive through residential areas unless you come down Detroit. What is the point of putting up flowers if people have to drive through mounds of trash to get there. First impression is everything.

I think the city should make people aware that we have backyard trash pick-up. I know the mayor loves pushing the service side. Maybe this should be in our next water bill.

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Mr. Timeski.

Nice try in getting to the real question of what waste and recycling cost, but there are a few flaws in your numbers.

The $93 million is Lakewood's TOTAL budget, which I believe would include water, streets, etc, which have their own dedicated revenue sources (not all local, of course). The GENERAL fund expenditures were only about $43 million. I believe this number includes waste pickup. So the approximately $4 million is really 10 percent of the city's general budget.

Next, income taxes provide only a portion of that amount, less than half, actually. Income tax collections in FY2005 were about $17 million (a number virtually unchanged since 2001; THAT'S ytour problem)

In 2000, there were 26,600 households in Lakewood (probably fewer in 2005). With a $43 milllion general fund expenditure, each HH therefore shelled out more like $1,600, a tenth of which would be $160.

That works out to about $13 a month, the same ballpark amount we hear a private firm would charge.

(The source for this particular data is the city's website, so if there are any flaws in MY methodology, please let me know).

Again, what's really worthwhile here is actually putting a price tag on some services.

http://ci.lakewood.oh.us/soc_financial.html

Thanks for the clarification, my numbers seemed too good to be true. I hope I’m not splitting hairs with what follows.

I guess the thing that I question is dividing the cost for refuse and recycling by the number of housing units. The sources of revenue don’t seem to have so much to do with the number of housing units. For example: The police, fire, city, and hospital workers pay income tax but may not live in Lakewood, in effect subsidizing our city services. Businesses pay property tax, income tax, and permit fees taking burden away from the housing units.

I think the $13.00 a month is probably high.

The pie chart that you have linked to seems to make the equation that much more complicated. Income tax makes up 47%, property tax makes up 23%, and a bunch of other stuff makes up for the rest.

If I recalculate just to fix my mistake, the non-property owning person who has not paid a fine and is still living (no estate tax) would do better:

($630.00 x 10%) / 12 months per year x 47% = $2.46 average refuse and recycling bill per month from local income tax.

So I would suggest that the average Lakewood citizen pays anywhere from $2.46 to $13.00 a month on refuse and recycling.

I guess with a few more numbers we could find how much the average property owner is paying, we would have to find out what percent property tax goes to the city general fund.

Does that sound more reasonable?