Before any decisions are made about contracting out more services, Calgary’s utilities and corporate services committee recommended that more consultation with industry as well as looking for more efficiencies from the City of Calgary’s waste and recycling department take place.
A study that examines whether Calgary should privatize some waste collection says the city could save money by privatizing a third of its black, blue and green cart collections. It states there will be savings of between $425,000 to $1.2 million — or about $1.30 to $3.90 per household — per year. But it does come at a price.
Privatization could lead to safety and customer service problems and it could be hard to find reliable workers, the report said.
The city pays its employees better, has better benefits and could attract better-qualified drivers, it stated.
Councillor Ward Sutherland, chair of the committee said he went through the report in great detail and said he found a lot of discrepancies.
“I made a lot of phone calls and did some research with private industry,” the ward 4 councillor said. “I truly don’t believe the cost savings in the report are accurate, I think they are too low, some of the cost efficiencies are understated.”
Sutherland said he was concerned with the lack of consultation with the private industry. Sutherland also said the recommendation to get industry feedback and look for more efficiency in waste and recycling services is the way to go before deciding whether to have more privatized service.
“We want to get the real facts. We want to look at the real savings, come back with it and, in fact, some of the councillors on the committee will be at those talks to ensure there is fairness and accuracy. Then we’ll come back and look at it.”
Cam Hantiuk with the Alberta Waste Management Agency says he understands it’s up to an elected council to make the decision on privatization, but had hoped to be more involved in the consultant’s report.
“We would simply appreciate an opportunity to provide our input into maybe clarifying some of the assumptions that we saw presented in the report,” Hantiuk said. “Those that led to the conclusion that introducing competition is not something worth considering at this time.”
Councillor Druh Farrell voted against going any further with the idea of privatization.
“There’s a sort of knee jerk reaction that it’s going to be cheaper but experience shows that it may be cheaper with the initial contract but the costs go up over time,” Farrell told reporters. “Calgarians are very happy with our waste and recycling services and certainly our surveys show that.
“Can it be better? I think that’s what we’re exploring today and the idea of some competition isn’t a bad thing. My question, first, is what problems are we trying to fix and once we’ve identified that then let’s focus on trying to fix that problem.”
The utilities and corporate services committee voted 7-1 to recommend council allow administration to get feedback from the private sector while also looking for more efficiencies from waste and recycling services, with a report coming back to committee in the second quarter of 2020.