Thursday, October 1, 2026
The Olympia City Council showed little interest in pursuing privatization of solid waste collection earlier this week, instead directing staff to move forward with the long-planned Carpenter Road maintenance facility.
At a city council study session on Tuesday, Aug. 18, Public Works Department Director Mark Russell and Waste ReSources Utility Director Ron Jones presented information on the facility, projected utility rates, and potential advantages and disadvantages of municipal and private collection.
The discussion followed an April study session in which council members asked staff to examine privatization as an alternative to building the proposed facility.
Russell said Waste ReSources is functioning well, but its current maintenance center on Eastside Street is seismically deficient, lacks adequate space, and needs at least $6 million in mechanical and electrical repairs. The facility also does not meet seismic and American with Disabilities Act requirements.
The Carpenter Road facility has been in the works for more than a decade with about $2.6 million spent on preparing for the project.
The proposed facility is estimated to cost just over $40 million. Russell said financing the project over 30 years would require about $3 million in annual debt payments.
Russell discussed the tradeoffs between keeping solid waste collection municipal and contracting with a private hauler.
He said municipal operations give the city control over routes, rates and service policies, while allowing Waste ReSources to provide community programs, such as Clean Team, downtown litter can service and special event support.
City-run collection also allows for close customer service and coordination with other Public Works Department functions during emergencies. More than 40 experienced employees would also retain their jobs.
However, the city would continue to bear the operational, financial and legal risks of running the service. Russell said major capital projects could also lead to steep rate increases because the costs are spread across a relatively small customer base.
A private collection service could offer weekly garbage pickup, smaller carts and access to larger fleets. But contracting out the service would reduce the city’s control over routes, service standards and customer service.
The availability and cost of specialized community services, emergency response and the impact on existing employees would also depend on the contract.
Russell said the city would need to issue a formal request for proposals (RFP) to determine what private collection would cost.
During the discussion, Council member Kelly Green urged the city to issue an RFP before committing to the Carpenter Road facility, saying the council should compare the known costs of municipal collection with unknown costs of privatization.
Green acknowledged an RFP would not guarantee a cheaper option, but said it could show private collection would be more expensive or create other challenges, giving the council a stronger basis for making a decision.
However, other council members were less inclined to pursue an RFP.
Council member Clark Gilman said the city has spent years studying the facility and conducted enough due diligence to make a decision. He said an RFP would be expensive, time consuming and would not guarantee meaningful responses.
He also cited loss of local control and the city’s ability to coordinate waste collection with other municipal services as reasons to keep the operation in-house.
After hearing the presentation, Mayor Dontae Payne said the lack of a clear problem was one of the biggest reasons he opposed privatization.
“We don’t have a problem that we are trying to fix," he said.
Payne also pointed to the city’s more than 40 long-term Waste ReSources employees, who could potentially lose their jobs if the city decides to privatize the waste collection.
“It is very hard for me to justify when I look at it here, a con just all by itself, is to lose 40-plus, long-term valuable employees,” Payne said.
He also noted most public feedback the council received favored keeping the service in-house.
In keeping the plan for the Carpenter Road facility, staff made a 10-year projection for rate increases.
A typical residential bimonthly waste bill for this year is $65. It would increase to $69 in 2027.
Rates would then increase by 17 percent in both 2028 and 2029. About 12 percent of those increases would cover debt payments for the Carpenter Road facility, while the remaining 5 percent would account for inflation, employee costs and other expenses.
In 2030, Russell said, rates would increase another 15 percent, including 10 percent to cover expanded organics collection and 5 percent for inflation and other costs.
From 2031 through 2037, the city projects annual increases of roughly 4 percent, bringing the typical bimonthly bill to about $143 by 2037.
Payne said the end result would be higher customer rates.
“Regardless of whether or not we keep it in-house or privatize, when we look at the rates in terms of projection, they will go up,” Payne said. “I think it’s a matter of by how much and how fast.”
8 comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here
Honestyandrealityguy
As much as I believe the local government is so inefficient, I believe it made the right decision in this case.
Thursday, August 20 Report this
BobJacobs
This is a welcome decision.
I have utility accounts in both Olympia and Tumwater. I find the Olympia service superior.
Bob Jacobs
Thursday, August 20 Report this
36098501
The City of Olympia has much larger issues to focus on than garbage collection.
As for service, both pick up garbage and take it to the Thurston County Transfer Station. Both, have portals and billing options.
You didn't see a garbage or cost analysis because Olympia is 2X+ more expensive by volume and they don't have glass recycling. The City picks up garbage every other week. LeMay picks up garbage every week.
My guess is that City rates will have to increase above what is mentioned here as costs typically come in higher than expected - and those are some very large expected rate increases in the pipeline.
The decision isn't about price, or service.
https://www.thejoltnews.com/stories/olympia-city-council-divided-on-40m-waste-facility,28942?
Thursday, August 20 Report this
CobraCommander
Well done, Olympia!
Privatization turns a public service into another entity designed to increase revenue annually at the expense of the consumer. Price hikes, service cuts, and layoffs all hurt the community.
Make things for people, not for profit.
Thursday, August 20 Report this
Jamama
I'm VERY concerned about these STEEP price increases proposed to keep garbage service in-house. That's prohibitive, AND generally it ends up costing more than projections...so we have a real issue here. The City needs to figure out how to do this with less drastic increases. We're already gettingetting LESS service and paying MORE for it. And about the 40 employees...I'll bet most would be hired by Lemay to cover the new Olympia service!
Thursday, August 20 Report this
OlyBlues
In the long run, this will prove to be a very costly, expensive, and ill advised venture for the city. How fascinating that the city council values refuse collection above public safety, choosing to outsource all municipal court and probation services to the county while placing a major priority on trash collection. Of course their internal Public Works union boss is going to tell them to keep waste collection internal. Without an independent study, the truth on costs vs a private vendor will never be known. But the increasing refuse costs will be astronomical for ratepayers and the city when you account for the development of a new facility and paying ongoing Teamsters city employees and benefits. What will the city cut next to afford this?
Saturday, August 22 Report this
PhyllisBooth
Bravo! Thank you for making the decision to keep our current service. Phyllis Booth
Saturday, August 22 Report this
36098501
One of the most interesting aspects of this conversation is that previous Council conversations and study sessions accomplished little, yet now are being considered as the due diligence that justify moving ahead without ever actually doing an adequate analysis. Even a basic analysis would require an RFP to benchmark the ongoing waste utility business plan and approach.
This has been an unserious process by the Council from the start. There is no scenario where they were going to give up a revenue stream that allows them to fund waste adjacent projects that aren't directly involved with picking up our garbage and hauling it to the dump.
Garbage is garbage. Everyone agrees it should be collected, managed responsibly, and taken to the dump. Yet here we are manufacturing an ideological argument out of refuse collection and injecting politics where it doesn't need to be.
Not every municipal service needs to become a proxy battle over politics, unions, or private enterprise. The issue is simple: what provides reliable service at a reasonable cost? Do the analysis, follow the numbers, publicly debate the issues and spare us the political theater.
One data point we do have is that every single community around Olympia uses a private hauler and has lower rates by pick up frequency and volume.
Had the City been managing this properly, the cost of these new facilities would have been part of previous garbage rates to build up reserves to fund the $100mm of new investment required to keep this utility functioning without sudden large rate increases. But then, rates would have been even higher.
The Mayor needs to realize that there is a big problem - affordability, management of City assets, services and public safety.
You'll notice that LeMay doesn't need to build a $100mm of buildings to continue doing their business in Thurston County. They have infrastructure scale (buildings, trucks, HR, billing, maintenance, etc) that Olympia can never have with its very limited size. They are forced to charge rates that cover these investments to keep their business competitive over the long term.
LeMay's rates are also controlled by Washington's UTC and have also been increasing primarily due to higher dump fees in Thurston County.
The public will never see a thorough analysis.
The issue doesn't have an answer because the analysis won't be done - on purpose. We will never know what the best approach is for the community because those in charge are afraid that analysis might demonstrate the high amount of overhead, cost, risk and bond burden on the City's balance sheet.
This is a great example of why our local government is struggling with basic responsibilities - infrastructure, roads, etc. The analysis never happens, but the perception of deep analysis is the narrative pushed by the Council and these study sessions without functional expertise involved that often result in Council decision that have expensive unintended consequences.
Prejudiced decisions based on politics will do that. Politics shouldn't be the focus of those running a City - but in Olympia they are. It is a really expensive approach with little to show for the dollars spent.
Sunday, August 23 Report this