Council decided to privatize curbside garbage pick up west of Yonge Monday, on the same day that a proposed ban on shark fin that also hogged a good deal of the media spotlight at 100 Queen West. Save the sharks, toss city workers to the curb?
The irony was probably lost on Fordists. The vote to privatize garbage pick up was a foregone conclusion, not even close actually, passing easily by a vote of 26 to 16. The mayor didn’t even bother to speak to the item.
On this one, the die had really been cast last May when council’s mushy middle voted with Fordists to explore contracting out curbside pick up and council opted to issue an RFQ, or Request for Quotation, as opposed to an RFP, a Request for Proposal. More on that later.
Still, the vote and debate around the awarding of the contract to Green for Life Environmental , a $17 million deal over seven years (with an option for two more) was no less strange to witness.
Local 416 union president Mark Ferguson referred to council’s decision to privatize as “exacting their pound of flesh,” for the 2009 strike. An interesting choice of words, given the shark fin-related deliberations to take place later.
But there seemed little inclination, judging from the debate, to add up the human costs of privatization.
Only a few councillors touched on that subject, and the increasing polarization between rich and poor (right and left, too) that has caused a tent city to spring up not only down the street at St. James Park, but in cities across the globe.
Councillor Anthony Perruzza noted that privatization will hurt not only city workers who are laid off, but the city, too, since the wages of those workers will no longer be poured into the local economy.
Most of Monday’s debate, however, surrounded the supposed savings contracting out garbage pick up will actually deliver. And here opponents of the plan exposed holes you could drive a proverbial garbage truck through.
Seems the cost savings analysis offered by city staff may have been overestimated by $12 million or so, according to a forensic audit commissioned by city unions and conducted by Rosen and Associates.
Rosen’s review says the city’s calculations didn’t take into account the $2 to $4 million cost of contingencies that must be built into the contract should something unforeseen happen during the seven-year life of the contract.
Rosen’s review says the city’s analysis failed to consider the costs of monitoring to ensure the contract is being delivered as per GFL’s agreement with the city, the details of which, it should be noted, are scant.
Rosen’s review also points out that the city’s estimate of savings incorrectly included some $5 million in costs for injured workers on modified duties and another $750,000 in purported savings for litter bin collection in parks.
Some who supported contracting out admitted to being leery about GFL’s winning bid, which is several million below a handful of others received by the city. And whether the company could fulfill the terms of the contract with 30 fewer trucks than the city currently deploys west of Yonge. Or, respond to the 1,100 complaints received daily with only half a dozen staff dedicated to customer service.
It was also revealed through questioning of staff that the city would only be able to recoup $12 million of the $17 million annual cost of the contract in the event of an “uncontrollable circumstance” if, say, the contractor went bankrupt.
But of all the revelations to come out of Monday’s meeting, the most controversial related to council’s original decision to contract out back in May. Call it a rookie mistake, as Councillor Krysten Wong-Tam did, or brilliant strategizing by the Fordists.
Council’s decision to issue a Request for Quotation (RFQ), as opposed to a Request for Proposal (RFP), for curbside pick up meant the bids it received were not actually evaluated in a meaningful way. You read that right.
The latter process is evaluative in nature. Which is to say there’s a dur diligence process by which those bidding for a contract are required to provide detailed information on how they intend to deliver.
An RFQ, on the other hand, is much narrower in scope. It doesn’t actually evaluate if a prospective bidder can or can’t perform the job, a fact that caught many in the council chamber by surprise. Price is the sole consideration.
Here’s the kicker: by opting for an RFQ, council put itself into a corner. Under the rules of an RFQ staff was legally obliged to accept the lowest compliant bid, or face the prospect of a lawsuit, a fact which was made clear and oft-repeated by a number of councillors in favour of privatization.
To add insult, the third-party evaluation asked for by council of the winning bid couldn’t be conducted by Ernst & Young since there were too few details in RFQ to evaluate.
On that front, Councillor Shelley Carroll raised the spectre of an MFP-like scandal in the making. Quoting from the report of Madam Justice Bellamy into that computer leasing scandal, Carroll noted that the awarding of that contract, which saw its cost balloon over the years, began with an RFQ.
Those among supporters of the privatization plan were also willing to ignore problems with GFL garbage contracts in other municipalities.
Some among them talked about the mix of private pick up in the city’s west end versus city-delivered service in the east is the ideal mix, would work to keep both honest.
But the mayor squelched that notion in a press conference later saying he plans to privatize curbside pick up right across the city.
