FAIRVIEW PARK, Ohio -- Nearly a decade ago, Fairview Park in a cost-cutting move eliminated its in-house garbage and recycling operation. The city also added a monthly $10 residential fee to partially cover the cost of hiring Republic Services to handle refuse.

City leaders are currently revisiting the fee, which brings in $727,000 a year and goes towards Republic Services’ roughly $900,000 annual cost. The balance is paid from the general fund.

Up for discussion is whether council should authorize the $10 per home Solid Waste Fee Special Assessment for tax years 2020 and 2021.

“Part of the ordinance that established the $10 rate says that every two years it gets evaluated,” Fairview Park Director of Public Service and Development Shawn Leininger said. “It’s been two years since the last time we looked at it, so we’re going through evaluating the ordinance and the fee to see if it should stay the same, be reduced, eliminated or increased.”

The other part of the current garbage and recycling discussion is tied to the city’s contract with Republic Services, which originally was a five-year deal that currently continues in the form of one-year options with 3 to 4 percent increases built into the contract language.

“What we’re doing as part of this is talking about the future and what happens in a couple of years if the option is not taken or we’re out of options and need to go out to bid,” Leininger said.

The service director said in examining the current garbage and refuse marketplace, a recent contract between Brunswick and Republic Services at $19.30 per home provides insight into the cost increase Fairview Park can expect. Not only is that a roughly $5 monthly increase per home, but it also represents a $10 difference between what residents are currently paying with the Solid Waste Fee.

“The purpose of the fee initially wasn’t to pay 100 percent of the cost of the refuse collection,” Leininger said. “The city would cover that gap. Coming up, that gap is going to be substantially larger than what it is right now, so how do we close that gap?

“That’s part of that current conversation -- Do we need to think about the fee now or wait to address the fee later? Do we look at other options? One of the options that council asked me to look was whether it was cheaper to bring our service back in house.”

Leininger said the cost for the city to create its own garbage service would be considerably more than going through the bid process with a private waste hauler.

“We believe right now we’re getting a really good deal on our refuse collection based on our current contract,” Leininger said. “As far as the Solid Waste Fee assessment, Cuyahoga County requires approval by September in order to be collected on next year’s tax rolls.

“That’s why we started this process early, so the conversation can take place and council and everybody had enough time to ask questions they had and analyze everything.”

Read more news from the Sun Post Herald here.