The city of St. Paul says it has reached an agreement in principle with a consortium of 15 garbage haulers who will coordinate residential trash collection between them.

If approved by the St. Paul City Council later this month, haulers would divide residential routes — homes of one to four units. They could begin citywide pickup as soon as spring or summer of 2018.

Financial details are expected to be released by early next week, in advance of a public hearing before the council on July 19. A final contract is possible in August.

Kris Hageman, the city’s recycling and solid waste program manager, said the new contract follows 10½ months of negotiations spanning 16 sit-down meetings and seven proposals.

“As of last week, we feel we have an agreement with all 15 (haulers) that meets most of the city’s priorities that we established a year ago,” she said.

But a representative from First Choice St. Paul, a public relations effort backed by haulers to oppose organized collection, said Tuesday that “proposal” is not quite a done deal.

Related Articles As memories of George Floyd fade, activists make sure his legacy does not

Minneapolis and St. Paul to add 70 electric car charging stations with $6.7M grant

Neighborhood girl finds and returns chef Justin Sutherland’s stolen knife roll

Therapy dog-in training stolen in St. Paul found, reunited with owners

St. Stanislaus’ longtime priest the Rev. John Clay leaves legacy of love. He died Sunday at age 94 The group says residents still may weigh in on organized collection with the council. A council vote on the deal will touch off more negotiations on issues haulers have yet to agree to, said Mike Zipko, a spokesman for the haulers opposition group.

“First Choice St. Paul believes the current system serves the city well by giving residents choice and access to competition,” Zipko said in a statement. “We believe this is a city government takeover of a private sector business function that will create a loss of choice because the City will choose the hauler, residents will not be able to switch providers if they are not getting the service they want and there will not be market competition to innovate, be more efficient or cost effective.”

Zipko didn’t detail the outstanding issues.

The city plans would offer three cart sizes — at 35, 65 and 95 gallons — with uniform, preset fees. The cheapest option would be collection every other week using the smallest cart. No households will be allowed to opt out of trash collection entirely.

Standard services would include walk-up collection for the elderly or disabled, and the collection of three bulky items annually, such as mattresses, electronics, furniture and appliances. Christmas trees will also be collected annually.

Additional bulky items and walk-up service for the non-elderly or non-disabled would incur additional fees.

The goal of offering bulk item collection as a standard service is to reduce the amount of illegal dumping, which disproportionately affects low-income neighborhoods but ends up costing all taxpayers money.

Joe Ellickson, a spokesman for St. Paul Public Works, said his department alone devotes $250,000 annually toward cleanup of tossed mattresses and assorted trash from the city’s public spaces. St. Paul Parks and Recreation spends additional money cleaning strewn garbage from parks.

Hageman emphasized that trash collection will be entirely fee-based, and will not affect the city’s general fund. As with recycling charges, an annual fee billed with property taxes will cover the costs of the city-owned carts and the city’s administrative expenses.

On a monthly basis, “haulers will be doing the billing, (and) will be the main point of contact for customer service issues,” said Hageman, noting the haulers had been insistent upon handling billing themselves.

The 15 haulers would divide the city between them in proportion to their existing market share, so no company is expected to lose customers overall. Each block will be serviced by a single hauler, reducing the number of vehicle trips per street, a major city priority.

Some haulers could even enjoy net gains when the unknown number of households not now subscribed to trash collection are added to citywide collection, which will be mandatory.

Among several key sticking points in recent negotiations, haulers had objected to the city’s insistence that they sign labor peace agreements indicating they would not oppose the unionization of their workers.

Instead of labor peace, the haulers have agreed to abide by a $20-per-hour minimum wage for drivers. Nondrivers would receive, at a minimum, the city’s living-wage standard, which is about $15 per hour without benefits, or slightly less with benefits.

The haulers also agreed to a series of worker protections and safety precautions the city requested.

The city is still examining whether to pursue a five- or seven-year contract with the consortium, which could alter monthly fees by roughly $1.40, depending upon cart size. Trash will be hauled to the Ramsey-Washington Recycling and Energy Center.