Sundre council was expected to debate during yesterday's meeting whether or not to withdraw membership in the Mountain View Regional Waste Management Commission (MVRWMC) over financial concerns.
Through an annual requisition to the town, Sundre residents are currently paying $17.50 a month for the commission's services, but the commission's requisition to the town will increase to $25 in 2015.
“It's an unexpected increase, which is never good,” said Dave Dubauskas, the town's chief administrative officer.
The commission is facing a deficit and has increased its requisitions to all of its member municipalities to recoup losses incurred over the last few years.
The commission is managed by a board of directors who are appointed each year by the respective municipal councils. The member municipalities consist of Olds, Sundre, Carstairs, Didsbury, Cremona and Mountain View County
As a result of the increase, town officials would like to explore other options for future waste services and receive bids from private providers.
“If it's over $25 then council's got a decision to make of ‘are we satisfied that MVRWMC is on the right track, is it going to be healthy, should we stay with them or should we go with the private one even though it costs a bit more?'” he said.
The Town of Carstairs and the Town of Didsbury councils both agreed last week to serve a one-year notice to withdraw from the commission.
“We want to support the MVRWMC and help it through what it's going through right now, but at the same time we need to make sure our residents needs are being met,” said Dubauskas.
“We need to look at whether that's still a viable option.”
And although other municipalities are requesting independent audits for 2014 financials, the Town of Sundre is not.
“An audit in my mind isn't the answer to the waste commission's problems. It's a managerial issue that they've got there,” he said. “How is it that management allowed the commission to get to this state?”
He believes the commission needs a chief administrative officer with experience in the industry, who has worked with municipalities and knows how commissions work.
“The sad part is they just had a management review done that said everything's great. I looked at that last fall and I wasn't pleased with that study because it really didn't address what I was starting to percolate at that time, some issues,” he said.
Town of Sundre officials attended an all-council meeting recently held in Olds to discuss the issue, he added.
“The commission needs to look at what services it delivers. It has changed over the years in terms of it was just a landfill and now they're offering pick up and waste. So the commission has to ask itself ‘is that a business we still want to be in, are there others out there that do that better than us?'” he said.
“So the commission has a lot of challenges and I think the audit will just show that yes, their paper processes are good. The woes aren't going to be fixed by a financial audit – they'll be fixed by a consultant coming in and saying ‘do it this way' or as I'm saying, get somebody in there that knows what they're doing,” he added.
“They're going to have to pay some larger amounts of money for that, to get a good qualified person, but when you look at the deficit they're facing, you know, maybe they should have done this a few years ago.”
Council was also expected to discuss adjusting the recently passed 2015 and 2016 budgets, because of the “unexpected” change in the requisition, during yesterday's meeting.
If the town chooses to withdraw from the commission, it can retract its withdrawal at any time during the year, according to Dubauskas.
“I wouldn't be going this route, I don't think if, we didn't have that option of retracting our withdrawal,” he said.
“So what that does is it gives us a chance to look at whether it's private parties, whether it's the town itself, or whether it's the waste commission that's going to carry out this service, because somebody has got to do it. Somebody has got to pick up this waste – but what's the best way?”
“If we're seeing in summer, early fall that the commission is on track, well then that's a choice we have of going with the commission and using them, or we may have other choices.”
Sundre has been a part of the commission since its inception in 2001.
