ࡱ> mol@ [VbjbjFF 3v,,KX``` j vvv6668nD4"+h"*************$,R.F*v"%**"%"%*vv***F&F&F&"%4v*v**F&"%*F&F&%)vvq)* PO6V%4=)m*4*0"+E),"/%"/q)vvvv"/vq)* &F&!"J*****ndd $&"n PHED COMMITTEE #4 May 3, 2005 Worksession M E M O R A N D U M April 29, 2005 TO: Planning, Housing, and Economic Development (PHED) Committee FROM: Marlene L. Michaelson, Legislative Analyst Aron Trombka, Legislative Analyst SUBJECT: Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) FY06 Operating Budget: Waste Management Programs In 2003 Council staff and Office of Legislative Oversight staff prepared an Intensive Budget Review (IBR) project to review the waste management practices of the Park and Planning Department of M-NCPPC. This memorandum summarizes actions taken by MNCPPC, reviews the evaluation of the carry-in, carry-out program prepared by the Park and Planning Department and considers potential changes in the FY06 budget related to this program. Attached on 7 to 46 is the Park and Planning Department Evaluation Report. Staff believes that Council must take action to address the significant litter problems existing in certain parks as a result of the carry-in, carry-out program and presents alternatives at the end of this memorandum. BACKGROUND Over the past several years the Council has considered ways to increase the efficiency of park maintenance activities and in 2003 directed Staff to prepare an IBR to focus on waste management issues. The report found many inefficiencies in the M-NCPPCs practices and made the following recommendations: Recommendation #1: Achieve a balance between customer service and the efficient use of resources by establishing guidelines that employ a variety of efficient waste management strategies; increasing the level of centralized decision-making; and assuming a higher level of responsibility by the park-user and redirecting staff resources toward litter control. Recommendation #2: Reduce the volume of waste handled by expanding the carry-in, carry-out program to all neighborhood parks, undeveloped parks, conservation areas, and selected local parks, and addressing the prevalence of illegally dumped material. Recommendation #3: Improve the efficiency of waste management practices by consolidating waste and minimizing the number of trips to the Transfer Station. Options to explore include grouping trash cans, increasing the use of dumpsters, piloting large in-ground containers, and implementing continuous path routing of trash trucks. Recommendation #4: Enhance existing recycling efforts by focusing on parks/facilities that generate the greatest amount of recyclable waste including administrative buildings and facilities where food and beverages are sold and consumed. Recommendation #5: Establish a program to monitor and evaluate the different strategies for improving the efficiency of waste collection and disposal practices. In particular, the program should explore the viability of the alternative strategies to manage waste at local parks. Actions Taken by M-NCPPC in Response to the IBR Report The Department has taken the following actions in response to the recommendations in the IBR report: Increased the usage of dumpsters by adding dumpsters where necessary and directing staff to go to dumpsters for disposal rather than making a special trip to the Transfer Station. Effective January 2005, the Department began a new consolidated waste management contract that will provide uniform services and fixed costs per location for both refuse dumpsters and large roll-off trash pickup and disposal services. Reduced the number of trips to the Transfer Station. From 2003 to 2004 there was a 28 percent reduction in total Department trips to the Transfer Station with a 41% reduction in small truck loads and a 22 percent reduction in large truck loads. If the Department maximizes the use of dumpsters, the trips to the Transfer Station will continue to decrease. Piloted an underground trash container at Cabin John Park. (These containers store significant amounts of trash and only require collection on an infrequent basis, resulting in significant cost savings.) Improved recycling programs at administrative buildings, maintenance centers and field offices and expanded the program to include major parks and enterprise facilities (such as ice rinks and tennis facilities) and facilities with vending machines. Recycling containers were uniformly labeled and collection procedures were established for the maintenance personnel. Started an public education campaign to inform residents about the pending implementation of the carry-in, carry-out program (see 15) Removed trash cans in December 2003 and began implementing the carry-in, carry-out program. In March 2004, the Council restored trash cans to heavily used stream valley parks due to the very large number of complaints (for Sligo Creek Park in particular). TESTIMONY AND CORRESPONDENCE From July 2003 through April 2005, the Council received comments from over 300 citizens concerned with the carry-in, carry-out program. The overwhelming majority opposed the policy. Citizens voiced a variety of reasons for the opposing the policy, including an increase in litter, the lack of significant monetary savings (since the Department had to increase their litter sweeps by maintenance workers to deal with the increased litter), and the lack of marketing and education designed to inform the public about the policy. Many of these citizens want specific language in the budget to direct M-NCPPC to put the trash cans back in parks. While most wrote letters or e-mailed the Council, the following testified at the public hearing about this policy: Jennifer Chambers (Civic Affairs for the Indian Spring Citizens Association, Coalition to Return Trash Cans to Our Parks), Philip Olivetti (Linden Civic Association; The Presidents Council of Silver Spring Civic Associations), Carole Ann Barth (Northwood Four Corners Civic Association), and Ted King. The Council did receive two letters supporting the policy. Staff was unable to determine where some of the letters the Council received originated. However, 66% of those Staff could determine belonged to residents in the Silver Spring vicinity and 20% belonged to residents of Bethesda. The Park and Planning Department submitted data to Council staff indicating that from August 2003 through March 2005, the Department received over 380 complaints on trash (but their complaint records did not differentiate between those complaining about trash in general and those complaining about the carry-in, carry-out program). Since they do not have a record of complaints received on trash issues before implementation of the carry-in, carry-out program, it is difficult to estimate how many complaints regarding trash in parks would have been received without the program. Of those complaints, 53% were for parks in the Meadowbrook area (which serves Silver Spring and Chevy Chase, including Sligo Creek Park,) and 21% were regarding parks in the Cabin John area (including Norwood Local Park and Westmoreland Hills Local Park). The chart which appears below indicates the number of complaints received by the Park and Planning Department by area.  Attached on 6 is a graph which shows the number of complaints each month since program implementation. Complaints peaked at the times the Council considered changes to the program (particularly in early 2004 when the Council voted to restore trash cans to Sligo Creek Park and other heavily used stream valley parks and now again during the review of the FY06 budget). As Staff indicated in the IBR, other jurisdictions that have implemented carry-in, carry-out programs have experienced significant complaints in the first one or two years of the program but then have found the residents adjusted to the program and complaints significantly diminished. Although it is difficult to tell whether that was beginning to occur here as well, Staff notes the surprisingly few complaints in the summer and early fall months of 2004 which are still considered peak season for park use. M-NCPPC PROGRAM EVALUATION M-NCPPCs evaluation is attached at 7 to 46 and recommends that the program be discontinued. The Report estimates a 2004 savings of close to $400,000 but also concludes that existing maintenance crews are spending additional time valued at $165,001 picking up litter and that the cost of new litter crews that visit the parks weekly is $165,988. They conclude that the program only saved $74,297 in 2004. Staff believes that the report indicates that the program was not implemented as conceived and also has concerns with the methodology used to calculate savings and therefore does not agree with the Reports conclusions. As the Committee will recall, the Waste Management Intensive Budget Review (IBR) report indicated that the Park and Planning Departments waste management disposal practices were very inefficient. The two primary causes of this inefficiency were the very large number of trips to the Transfer Station (some with a very small quantity of trash) and the regular visits by trash crews to every park in the system, regardless of the level of trash in the park. Travel time was a significant component of the costs. The Department has taken efforts to reduce the trips to the Transfer Station by following the IBRs recommendation to place dumpsters at maintenance facilities throughout the County so that staff could minimize travel time by taking trash to nearby dumpsters instead of traveling to the Transfer Station. The evaluation report indicates that there was a 28% reduction in the number of trips to the Transfer Station. Since the report indicates that there has only been a 1% increase in the amount collected by contractors from 2003 to 2004 (as a percentage of total waste), the Department has not yet maximized potential benefits from the use of dumpsters but ongoing changes make Staff optimistic that they will continue to increase dumpster usage and further decrease trips to the Transfer Station. The Departments method of implementing litter collection meant the program did not, and could not, have achieved the estimated savings. The estimated savings were based on the premise that once carry-in, carry-out was implemented, it would no longer be necessary for a special trash crew to visit each and every park. Staffs assumption was that for many parks (particularly those with very low usage), litter pick-up would occur at the same time park maintenance staff were at the park for other reasons. It was also assumed additional litter collection would be needed, especially in the early years of the program, but that it could be targeted to those parks experiencing the greatest increase in litter. Instead the Department decided that a special trash crew should visit each park on a weekly basis year round (during both peak and non-peak seasons), regardless of whether a park exhibited a litter problem requiring an extra pick-up. This resulted in the exact same inefficiencies reported in the IBR. A crew of two (generally the same number used previously to collect trash) continued to visit each park for a special trip this time to check for and, if necessary, pick up litter. The crews only visited the parks once a week instead of the several trash pick-ups per week during peak season; however, during the off-peak season they provided a level of service comparable to the trash pick-up at many parks and it is unlikely that they realized any savings during off peak periods. Especially in the off season, when park usage is limited, the Department should have relied on its existing maintenance crews rather than sending out a special litter crew. Moreover, the data in the report appears to indicate that not all parks experienced the same litter problems. In fact, 86% of the time spent by existing maintenance crews on litter collection was in the Southern Region while only 14% of the time was spent by existing crews in the Northern Region. Rather than shift resources to address the greater number of parks and more significant problems in the Southern Region and in Silver Spring in particular, 46% of staff time of special litter crews was spent in the Northern Region. Since the report indicates that only 26% of the parks were problem parks, it appears that much of the $166,000 spent on special litter crews may have been unnecessary. Staff further notes that the Departments method for calculating the additional time spent by normal maintenance crews visiting the park is questionable. Although they were careful to count the number of bags of litter collected, they d0 not appear to have any baseline for the amount of litter collected by maintenance crews prior to implementation of the carry-in, carry-out program and therefore counted all litter as new litter generated by the program (see footnote 1). Park and Planning Department indicated that a measurable amount of time was spend collecting litter before implementation of the carry-in, carry-out program, but Staff has no way of ascertaining the volume of litter before the program making it difficult to tell what portion of maintenance crew time is due to the removal of the trash cans. Staff disagrees with the report finding that it is difficult to differentiate the savings attributable to carry-in, carry-out versus other measures being implemented to more efficiently manage waste collection. While it is highly likely that other strategies (in particular the increased use of dumpsters) are responsible for the reduced costs of transporting trash to the Transfer Station and possibly a small percentage of the tipping fee ($44,584 see 8 and 22), there can be no other reason for the savings assumed for not sending the trash crews to collect trash ($327,608). The Evaluation Report indicates that the carry-in, carry-out program appears to be working at 74 percent of the parks and a problem at 26% (70 parks) but nonetheless concludes that the program should be ended and trash cans returned to the parks due to the limited cost savings and because they believe that they cannot attribute savings to the carry-in, carry-out program. Staff disagrees with these conclusions and believes that if implemented properly, the program could save far more. OPTIONS There are several options for the Committee to consider regarding the future of this program. Regardless of the option chosen, it is critical for M-NCPPC to address the significant problems caused by the absence of trash cans in parks in certain down county areas, either by providing trash service to those areas or significantly increasing litter collection. Option 1: Retain Current Program If this option is selected, Staff believes it will be critical to shift litter collection crews from parks when they are not needed (particularly in the Northern Region) to parks experiencing the greatest increases in litter (predominantly in the Southern Region). The intent of the program as recommended in the IBR was to avoid any unnecessary trips to parks for waste management purposes and to focus resources where needed. The Departments implementation did not achieve this goal. Truly providing appropriate levels of litter pick-up services in impacted parks would address the most significant complaints about the program, but may not result in significant savings, and therefore Staff does not recommend this option. Option 2: Reconsider the Original Staff Recommendations in the IBR Report In the IBR report Staff recommended that the carry-in, carry-out program be implemented at all neighborhood parks, stream valley parks, conservation areas and selected other parks. (The portions of the IBR that presented Staffs recommendations for the carry-in, carry-out program are attached at 1 5; see section entitled Carefully Select the Parks on 3). Staff believed that it was important to select parks that were not heavily used and where the probability of success was greatest during the early stages of implementation. Urban parks and parks with ballfields were not included in this category (but were to be piloted on a very limited basis at locations where park managers believed the program could succeed). Staff also recommended that the Department provide park managers with the discretion to exclude a limited number of parks from the carry-in, carry-out program based on their assessment that the program would not succeed at this location. Most of the parks that have had problems with the carry-in, carry-out program would not have had trash cans removed under the IBR recommendation and those that did could have had cans restored at the managers discretion. If this option is selected, trash cans would be returned to all local and urban parks and to the specific parks that Park and Planning Department staff believe should be excluded from the program (e.g., those parks that have had the greatest volume of litter and the greatest number of complaints). This could address many of problems experienced thus far and greatly reduce the need for special litter crews. Option 3: Restore Trash Cans to Problem Parks in Specific Areas This option would restore trash cans to areas which have experienced the greatest problems in terms of increased litter. To do this in the most efficient manner possible, Staff recommends that a decision be made on an area by area basis for all parks in the region. (Maintenance services are provided by 10 different area crews.) For example, the Meadowbrook Area, and other areas that have experienced significant problems, would most likely decide to replace all trash cans while some of the Upcounty areas with limited litter would continue without cans. It is essential that those parks that stay in the program either eliminate special litter crews or only send them to problem parks or the program will not generate significant savings. Staff notes that many of the parks experiencing the greatest problems with carry-in, carry-out had significant waste problems before the program was implemented and therefore the Council should not assume that restoration of trash cans will eliminate all complaints. Option 4: Restore Trash Cans to all Parks Some residents (and Councilmembers) believe that all parks should have trash cans as a basic service of government and that any level of savings associated with a carry-in, carry-out is not worth the inconvenience to County residents. The Park and Planning Department have estimated the cost to reinstall the trash cans at $86,000 and the additional cost to provide trash pick-up at all parks at $250,000 per year. It is unclear to staff why the cost to restore service is so much greater than the estimated savings attributable to the carry-in, carry-out program and this issue must be addressed if the Council selects Option 4. In addition, Staff recommends that if this option is chosen that the Council direct the Department to continue with other cost savings strategies identified in the IBR such as appropriately routing trash trucks, using dumpsters and piloting underground waste receptacles. They should also continue to collect data to allow them to evaluate different waste collection strategies.  FILENAME \* Lower\p \* MERGEFORMAT f:\michaelson\budget - p&p\operating budget\current year fy06\carry-in, carry-out\050503cp.doc  Although a significant increase in the use of contractors to collect trash from dumpsters should have meant a large reduction in the tipping fee, the waste picked up by contractors as a total percentage of M-NCPPC waste only increased by 1% during the study period from 10% in 2003 to 11% in 2004 (see 23). Therefore it appears that the reduction in the tipping fee was due primarily to the carry-in, carry-out program. 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