The City of Murray, Kentucky



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Sanitation Collection Services

City Ordinance number 93.09 states the following:

"The Council shall have the right and recognizes its obligations to revise the schedule of rates provided in 93.08 hereof and to adjust them that costs will be distributed as equitably as possible among all citizens of the city on the basis of services. At no time, however, shall rates be continued which are disposed to be producing less revenue than is required to meet all obligations and costs involved in rendering refuse service to the public."

In 2015, The Sanitation Department determined that most of the department's equipment had more than exceeded its expected useful life and was past due to be replaced. It was realized that cost of replacing the existing trucks and containers would cost the City millions of dollars. It was also realized that the current rates that were established in 2013, were insufficient to meet the obligations and costs involved in rendering sanitation services and would only worsen should equipment replacement occur.

At that time, it was determined that to meet the current and additional obligations and costs all sanitation rates would need to be adjusted. For residential services, this meant that single container rates would need to be increased be $6 to $7 dollars per month, effectively raising the monthly charge for residential service to between $21 and $22 dollars per month. It should be noted that the median residential sanitation rate in Western Kentucky is $22 per month. The City needed to explore other options and sub-contracting the collection work was one of those options.

In October of 2016, The City of Murray contracted with Republic Services, Inc. to provide subcontractor services for the collection of solid waste for the Murray Sanitation Department. Under the contract agreement with Republic Services, in addition to providing the day to day collection of solid waste for the Sanitation Department in accordance with the City's rules for collection, new residential and commercial containers would be provided for all of the City's customers. Furthermore, this would all be provided at a cost to the Murray Sanitation Department so as to allow the City's current rate structure established in 2013 to remain unchanged through the contract period ending in 2021. Unfortunately, this also meant that the City must now enforce its own sanitation rules established under City ordinance that it had failed to enforce in the recent past.

At the end of the current contract period, the City has the option of either extending the contract for another 5 years, placing the contract out for bid, or resuming sanitation collection itself.

Since Republic Services is only a sub-contractor for the City, all customer requests and inquiries must be processed through the City's Sanitation Department for resolution.

Please contact the Murray Sanitation Department at 270-762-0380 for any of the following:

Public Works