Subject:
Title
Financial Incentive for Resident Reporting of Legitimate Service Complaints of Waste Management Missed Garbage, Recycling, or Yard Waste Pickups
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Fiscal Impact:
Varies based on the number of legitimate service complaints per month that result in liquidated damages.
Dept/Office:
Solid Waste Management Department
Requested Action:
Recommendation
It is requested that the Board of County Commissioners approve the methodology of tracking and disbursement of financial incentives for legitimate service complaints of missed garbage, recycling, or yard waste complaints against Waste Management as detailed in this report.
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Summary Explanation and Background:
The Board of County Commissioners, in regular session on July 20, 2021, directed Solid Waste Management staff to seek all available contractual remedies against Waste Management in the form of liquidated damages for service failures covered under the existing contract beginning August 20, 2021; authorized a financial incentive to ratepayers who report legitimate complaint failures ( as defined under the current contract with Waste Management) as follows: $20.00, less processing or Administrative costs, for verified phone reported missed pickups, or $25.00 for electronically reported and verified missed pickups using the County’s online system, less processing or Administrative costs; and authorized that the maximum amount that any rate payer would receive in the course of a year not exceed what the resident paid toward the actual collection service.
The Solid Waste Management Department has determined that the most effective way to disburse the incentives would be in the same manner that security deposits for Solid Waste gate accounts are refunded following closure of a project. In this manner, the names, addresses, and amounts of incentive would be forwarded to the Finance Department on a monthly basis, who would then process and mail the checks to the recipients. The Solid Waste Management Department would maintain a database to track reporting the complaints, the requested check amounts, and the cumulative payout against each recipient’s non-ad valorem special assessment collection rate.
Solid Waste staff have determined that based on an average of 50 checks to be processed, the internal costs to the County will be $5.47 per check. As such, a $20.00 incentive for a phoned complaint would result in a check for $14.53 and a $25.00 incentive for an electronically logged complaint would result in a check for $19.53 The average of 50 incentive recipients was used by taking the average number of monthly complaints that resulted in liquidated damages against Waste Management service between October 2020 and May 2021. Under this scenario, $1,192.10 would be provided as incentives, $273.50 would be allocated and distributed internally for administrative costs, while $2,500.00 would be collected as liquidated damages. (Based on 35 complaints by phone and 35 complaints using the online system. According to the current contract between Brevard County and Waste Management, liquidated damages for missed pickups are not assessed for the first 20 legitimate service complaints in a given month.)
Option 1
All legitimate complaints for missed garbage, recycling, or yard waste pickups will result in the receipt of an incentive check based on the method of registering a complaint, regardless of liquidated damages against the contract for that given month. However, there is the potential for incentive payments to be disbursed that exceed the liquidated damage claims for a given month if there are fewer than 33 verified legitimate service complaints in a given month.
Option 2
Other direction from the Board.
Clerk to the Board Instructions: