SANITATION

average to its three current contract haulers, according to materials the county provided in response to the records request. It entered into five-year contracts in 2015 with Town & Country, Suburban Sanitation Inc. of Hot Springs and SLM Sanitation Inc. of Bonnerdale to service each of the three zones individually.

The Zone 1 contractor since the county began residential collection in the late 1990s, Town & Country bid on all three zones individually. Each proposal quoted a $10.20 monthly rate and included an alternative bid of $9.45 for countywide service.

The county bills customers $16.50 a month, with the difference between its rate and the contractor’s rate paying the county’s billing and cart maintenance costs. It also subsidizes the county’s cost of transporting solid waste to Class 1 landfills outside the county and tipping fees the landfills charge.

The county’s Class 4 landfill is only permitted for construction and demolition debris, appliances, furniture and other bulky items.

“Unless something changes I can’t foresee, it looks like we will be constant on our rates for the residents for all seven years of the contract,” Mahoney told justices of the peace earlier this month. “That’s our goal.”

The request for proposals the county issued in April allowed bids on more than one zone but didn’t allow a contract to be awarded for more than one area. The county rejected initial proposals and issued a new notice to bid in June, hoping contractors would submit lower bids if given the option to service all zones.

JM Bozeman LLC of Hot Springs was the only other contractor to bid on all three zones, quoting a $10.75 per cart price for each individual zone and

$10.67 for countywide service. It proposed using six 2020 Kenworths equipped with Labrie Automizer compactors and lifting arms and six 2020 Peterbilts with Wayne compactors and lifting arms if it were awarded all three routes.

Town & Country’s proposals listed four 2020 Freightliners equipped with Labrie Automizer compactors and lifting arms and three 2016 Freightliners with Heil compactors and lifting arms.

Contractual terms provided to bidders mandated a minimum of four trucks. At least three have to be new and the fourth no older than two years and having fewer than 15,000 miles. A compactor capacity of 8 to 20 cubic yards was required along with an automatic or semiautomatic lifting mechanism.

Proposed equipment accounted for 20 percent of the score in the bid analysis the county hired B & F Engineering Inc. to conduct. All four bidders, including SLM and Suburban, which bid on the Zone 2 and

3 routes they currently serve, received equal scores for equipment.

Town & Country’s bid price, which accounted for 40 percent of the score, set it apart. According to the bid analysis, SLM bid

$10.47 per cart for the Zone 2 contract it’s held since 2015, and Suburban bid $11.27 for the Zone

3 contract it’s held for 22 years. SLM and Suburban currently charge $10.02 and $10.95, respectively, according to information the county provided the newspaper. Town & Country charges

$10.43 to service Zone 1. Suburban ranked first in the Zone 3 analysis in familiarity with the area, which accounted for 20 percent of the score, with JM Bozeman and Town & Country second and third. It tied Town & Country for the top rank in experience and capacity to perform, which each accounted for 10 percent of the score.

Suburban proposed using the largest and most powerful compactor of all bidders. The four

2020 Freightliners they listed included Heil Liberty compactors with 20 cubic yards of capacity and 2,200 pounds of pressure per yard. Other contractors listed compactors with 17 cubic yards of capacity and 800 to 900 pounds of pressure.

SLM ranked first in the Zone

2 analysis in familiarity with the area but second in experience and bid price.

Town & Country was the highest-rated bidder in each zone. The contract it starts in January will include about

21,300 residential carts. The county was paying haulers for about 24,000 carts but only billing for 22,000. A cart audit they contracted last year established the updated count. Town & Country’s $9.45 per cart charge is subject to annual adjustments based on the Consumer Price Index, according to the terms of the contract.

The county budgeted $3.2 million from the solid waste fund for 2019 contract sanitation collection.