The City of Duncan will buy a new street sweeper, at a total cost of $519,000, and stop contracting out the service.
Brian Murphy, Duncan's director of public works and engineering, told council at its meeting on Oct. 7 that it would, in fact, be cheaper in the short term to keep the city’s street sweeping contracted out.
He said it has been estimated that a comparable service of 406 hours of street sweeping per year from a contractor would cost the city about $78,000 per year, and almost $108,000 per year if it’s brought back in-house.
Murphy also pointed out that the costs of disposing of the material collected from the streets has been overestimated over the past few years in the city’s street-sweeping budget, which could result in a 36 per cent increase in sweeping hours, from 245 hours over a year to 334 hours, without adding anything to the budget if council decides to stay with contracting out.
But he noted that the only reason not to go back to an in-house service is the cost.
“We would have more control of an in-house service and we can schedule things and be more reactive, but it does come with a cost,” Murphy said. “Street sweepers are incredibly expensive and we would have to pay for the capital costs and it still takes an operator, and that’s someone who could be doing other public works instead. With the more hours that we now can add to the contracting-out service, we could defer this decision for now and council could revisit it at anytime.”
But Coun. Mike McKinlay raised some concerns with the contracting-out service.
He said the contracted sweeper went by his house recently and he had to go out and continue the cleanup because the sweeper went by too quickly and hadn’t done it properly.
“I think buying the street sweeper would be a good purchase because we could do our own streets and look after ourselves,” McKinlay said.
Coun. Garry Bruce said he received a shock when a representative from FIT Local Government Consulting told council earlier in the meeting how much the city will have to spend on infrastructure renewal in the coming years to remain sustainable.
He said he doesn’t think the city can afford the luxury of a new street sweeper at this time.
“I guess management is going to have to hit [the sweeping contractor] properly because it’s no good if they aren’t picking up the garbage in front of our homes,” Bruce said.
“But I think with the costs involved [of going in-house] and the fact that we can get 36 per cent more sweeping time, we should go with the contractor at this stage as much as I like the idea of buying a machine and having it in-house.”
Mayor Michelle Staples said she feels there hasn’t been a time when the city has been happy with the level of maintenance it’s getting in its streets with the contractors.
“This is an issue we hear a lot about from the people who feel the work is not being done,” she said. “There are a lot of indirect costs to having inconsistent service.”
Council voted to buy the street sweeper, with Bruce opposed.
