Absent and excused, but we're glad to have everyone else.

And we will start uh with a solid waste services overview with Ms.

Gupta from Solid Waste.

Good afternoon, uh, Mayor and Council.

I'm Shika Gupta.

I'm the Solid Waste Services Director.

Um today completes three months of my service with the city, so excited to be here.

Thank you.

Um I sincerely want to thank my team and acknowledge them for all the work they've put together for this presentation and for the budget of our department.

Um they've been really patient with me and helping me learn the budget and getting me here in front of you today.

And also I sincerely want to thank our budget and finance team for their support as well as we talk about uh solid waste services budget.

So um today we'll go over what Solid Waste Services Department does, our key accomplishments for fiscal year twenty-six, our uh base budget for fiscal year twenty seven, and what proposed fee we bring to the table.

And then we we will look at some benchmarking and then our yard waste enhancement program that we have been working on.

Uh, from the uh from the organics.

This is a such a great example of circular economy at a local level and a zero waste initiative that we meet uh through this facility we have.

And under other services, um, Solid Waste Services offers an on-demand collection service such as bulky special or items um collection.

We also allow residents to schedule the removal of specific household items upon request, for example, e-waste, and then we also provide services at city sponsored and non-sponsored events.

While the total number of bus stops have remains relatively stable, container locations and collection routes are adjusted regularly.

Um this is our first year utilizing the model that has been uh created in support uh with support from uh consultant for budgeting and forecasting, and the model has the ability to forecast for 20 plus years.

Just for context, Raleigh Water and Stormwater utilize a similar model for many years, and they have reached a and to get to a stable enterprise, this is uh this is an amazing tool that we have started to use as well.

Our contract with Sonoko Recycling for processing our recyclables um in this third year, um, we are continue to provide uh conduct audits there, and what those audits help us with is kind of guide our outreach and education for specific items that we want to focus uh our residents' attention to to provide a cleaner material that we can collect through our recycling um cards.

And I'll I'll um talk this about yard waste enhancement transition from transportation a little bit more detailed, but just as a reminder, this transition was approved by council in June of 2026, and we have start we started planning for it and have been planning through this fiscal year as well.

Another major accomplishment for uh that we are continuing to work on our um yard waste center pilot for food waste processing, and we have been collecting data starting of January of 20 uh of this year, and I'm gonna provide you some more information on this on a future slide.

So for fiscal year 27, our budget um before any rate increases looks like this.

So we have a budget gap of about 8.47 million dollars, and um the revenue for our fiscal 27 is um is reducing a little bit uh because we are only uh um realizing about 1% growth rate in our revenue, as well as we have a reduction in our yard waste revenue from uh transportation not bringing the leaves that they collect to the yard waste center and giving us a tip fee.

So that's about a $637,000 reduction in our revenue there.

And then also, as you can see, our expenses have also gone up.

So just to go a little bit in more detail on that, um so our budget increased drivers are mainly personnel.

So our personal exp personnel expenses have increased 3.8 million, driven mainly by the yard waste enhancement transition since we're adding staff and trucks, and increasing in increase in benefits and merit.

Internal transfer um in expenses have increased about $600,000, which are driven by higher shared service and direct costs, risk costs, and the new fleet CIP transfer included in this year's uh budget.

And then the last but not the least is our operational expenses have also increased by about 200,000, primarily driven by higher contractual services and other operational costs.

It is also worth noting that this category includes our transfer to our CIP fund, which remains consistent with the prior year contribution of about $819,000.

So looking forward now, um, what we are proposing as a rate increase overall is about 9.8%, which amounts to $2.55 per account.

Um this increase is a little more bit more than what was presented to council at 7.7% um earlier, and oops.

It'll wake up in a second, I believe.

Um so the 7.7% was what was presented earlier, but we are looking for a 9.8% rate increase to accommodate for the yard waste enhancements that we are making.

Also, we are proposing a $10 increase in the yard waste center tip fee along with a corresponding increase to the residential minimum fee.

Historically, this minimum was um said to reflect the cost of half a ton of yard waste.

However, while the per ton tip fee has risen over time, the residential minimum has not been adjusted accordingly.

So this minimum fee will now cover the cost of processing that material.

So with weekly yard waste collection, we are hoping that um beginning with that program, it should bring um reduction in residential res uh residents having to go to the yard waste center.

So they should be able to use the weekly collection service instead of going there directly.

So we are intentionally approaching the rate increase and being proactive about it.

So if you uh so that's why we are hoping that to maintain an approximate 9.8% growth in rate over next five fiscal years.

And these rate increases are needed to offset general fund subsidy decrease and supporting our yard waste enhancement transition.

This slide provides comparison with other cities in the state as well as out of state.

So while it's challenging to identify municipalities that provide the exact same services as we do, we have compiled a group of peer cities that have similar services.

So the comparative rates shown here are based on fiscal year 26 figures.

Given the inflate inflation happening everywhere around the nation, it is likely that many of those services will uh cities will also increase their rates this year.

So we have comparison with Richmond, uh Willing Wilmington and Irving, Texas, as they offer similar services as we do.

And you can see that we are lower than them right now.

Our neighboring peers, Apex, Holly Springs, Zebulon, they contract with an external vendor for these services.

So what makes it even harder is for example, Apex uses an external vendor for garbage and recycling, but the town collects yard waste.

So while our fee may seem higher as a monthly minimum, but other municipalities like Holly Springs, Apex, they charge fees for additional monthly card collection and higher fee.

Our fee is only $2 per additional card for yard waste collection.

Theirs can go up to $12 for the month for an additional card.

So with the rate increase I proposed, we are hoping to uh close our budget gap and uh balance our budget.

So the rate increase will uh provide us about 4.6 million, and then we'll also use some fund balance appropriation to uh to balance the budget and reduce uh reduce our gap to zero.

And uh now I'm gonna focus a little bit of my energy on yard waste enhancement program that we are working on, provide you some visuals on what uh what these changes will look like.

So we'll we are going from 26 yearly collections per customer to 52 yearly collections per customer.