After all the talks and forewarnings up until now, it seems the City’s backyard pickup program was the first to get cut as of Jan. 13.
As part of the Our Humboldt planning process that was started last year, the city is reviewing the budget for the coming year to determine what it’s priorities are or should be.
“Part of the process that council has been going through and reviewing all of the city’s programs has been to identify what council’s priorities are,” said Roy Hardy, city manager for Humboldt. “With the ones in place already, there’s an analysis being done on whether it should go out or maintain it at its current level or if it doesn’t necessarily meet all the values that Our Humboldt has.”
As most people have already discovered, the City’s backyard pickup and compost program is being discontinued. It was determined that the money being used to fund the program could be better used elsewhere. While many people are obviously confused and upset by this, the City had a number of reasons for its decision.
“The report that went to the Leisure Services meetings from staff looked at a number of factors with respect to the program: it looked at who it was serving, are they being provided that service elsewhere in the community? What alternatives are there? Was it meeting what the intent of the program was in the first place?” said Hardy. “My understanding is that this program has been one that has been on the review process for a number of years probably because it was one that there was question as to the value of what it was and what it did (for the community).”
In other words, based on the estimated expenditure, the City determined that there was no more need for them to provide the service when there were other alternatives available (such as companies and contractors for hire). Moreover, the City discovered that almost half of the people were finding other ways to dispose of their compost or getting rid of it themselves.
“We know that the taxpayers’ pockets are limited and we can’t keep adding programs to the list of services that people want in the city,” said Hardy. “Some programs take a higher priority, so ones that take a lower priority that aren’t taking on the objectives of the community went to the bottom of the list.”
According to Darrell Lessmeister, director of Community & Leisure Services for the city of Humboldt, the estimated $60,000 cost for the program came mainly from employee wages. There were four staff members who were getting paid $13.25 per hour for 40 hours per week. Then there were fuel costs, tools, and other supplies to factor in. While normally those wouldn’t add up to too much, difficult weather could increase some costs such as for fuel since it would take workers longer to complete their task.
Aside from picking up the backyard compost, staff members would also bring along a wood chipper and pick up branches and smaller items. They would get to every household approximately four to five times each between April and October, depending on the weather.
Now that the program is no more, residents will have to find another way to get their compost to the landfill, where there is a compost site free of charge. It may not be free or as easy as it was before, but there are other options available to residents.
According to Hardy, the money saved from this program will go towards benefiting residents in other ways.
“There are a number of other priorities based on the Our Humboldt directions,” he said. “So instead of asking for more money to do those things, in some cases (the City) has to make the hard decision of taking something off the list to put something on the list … New projects will come in front of council that are going to take some precedence and will benefit from the program being discontinued.”
