On Tuesday, the Leon County Commission will be updated on a decline in service levels by Waste Pro, Leon County’s selected vendor for garbage and yard waste services.
Specifically, the Commission will hear that liquidated damages are at a three-year high and both yard waste and standard service day misses continue to cause of complaints.
The Commission will also be updated on changes that have been made to address the challenges faced by the vendor.
Service Levels
To ensure performance, the original agreement between Leon County and Waste Pro provides for liquidated damages to be assessed in the event of unresolved customer complaints.
Per the agreement, the ability to levy liquidated damages is a tool the County uses to address non-compliance with terms of the agreement. In addition to levied liquidated damages, the volume and nature of customer calls is another indicator used to monitor Waste Pro service.
For the beginning of 2022, $115,005 in liquidated damages have been assessed, indicating the largest culmination of damages since March and April of 2019.
The staff report states that the “recent increase in liquidated damages is indicative of an overall service decline. Culminating in June, Waste Pro experienced a reduction in service delivery to unacceptable levels.”
The report notes that this “reduction has impacted collection of yard debris, with some areas not receiving service for several weeks. Numerous garbage and recycling routes also were incomplete. Staff remained in near constant contact with Waste Pro leadership in the field and met with impacted residents to validate complaints and ensure citizens receive the service they pay for.”
Waste Pro has acknowledged the broader sentiment of operations not being acceptable in preceding months.
Waste Pro Makes Changes
Waste Pro has made several changes to address the drop in service which has been attributed to a combination of COVID, hiring and retention troubles, supply chain interruptions, and equipment failures.
The update states that, “New interim leadership has made numerous corrective actions to improve staffing, equipment, and service response. To ensure all routes are caught up, additional trucks have been added to service yard debris and Waste Pro is running an extra day (Saturdays) until further notice. It is expected that all customers will receive service as required by the agreement.”
As noted in the update, new management continues to make numerous process improvements focusing on internal and external service delivery. Enhancements have been made in areas such as employee pay, training, investment in technology, hiring of third-parties, transparency, and customer service.
Specifically, wages have been increased 30% for field staff; Waste Pro supervisors are temporarily driving service trucks and weekends are being worked to complete routes; contractor labor was supplemented to double the capacity of bulky pickup as well as double the capacity of fleet repair; and Waste Pro has rented numerous trucks to supplement inoperable fleet.
As detailed in the April status report to the Commission, Waste Pro made recent investments in the collection fleet following a string of hydraulic leaks. The efforts continue to yield positive results, and there have been no reported leak concerns in over three months. Evidence of Waste Pro’s new trajectory is occurring; however, large-scale changes will take time to be felt system wide.
The staff report states that, “County staff remain diligent to ensure Waste Pro resolves customer concerns as they occur.”
In addition, staff continues to actively engage with Waste Pro and monitor contract performance to ensure satisfactory service levels are maintained.
Leon County: Waste Pro Service Has Declined, Changes Implemented added by Staff on
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This is pick up day. I called Waste Pro to ask when they were going to pick up branches and yard refuse from the Hurricane that passed through Tallahassee a few weeks ago. I was told that Waste Pro has declared a emergency and that they are no longer responsible for pick….it is now FEMA’s responsibility. I asked who to contact and they could not tell me. I threatened to contact the Mayor. Less than an hour later Waste Pro came by and picked up some of the debri. But they left a good bit and an awful mess across the road.
Bill @gmail
The truck logo says it all…Waste Pro…The pros at spreading waste all over this County and our neighborhoods. John Dailey used to be our commissioner..Lives on Live Oak Plantation and you never saw his bow tie in our neighborhoods off of Old Bainbridge. Maddox..prison, Yordon shoplifter, The Usual Suspects for sure!! Above the law??Bowtie leadership you can trust? BS
Take another Doak bribe for that next backyard party. Time for regime change…VOTE!
My neighborhood looks like the landfill. There are 7 houses on the main drag that have bulk garbage out front. There are 4 on my street alone. Waste Pro will not pick it up u less you are the homeowner calling. Obviously they do not mind or they would call themselves. There should be a bulk trash schedule like the city has. UNACCEPTABLE ! If I wanted to live in a trash dump I would move to the landfill.
No one’s perfect, people Complain to much. Many of our current problems come from bad policy decisions from the coved lock downs. Blame the government, there not the solution!
Looked behind the. Curtain.
@Hope I don’t know but it was about how Governance, Inc. lobbyist/consultant Reggie Cardozo (who is running John Dailey and David Bellamy’s campaigns) represented Waste Pro, and how shady that whole cabal is.
What happened to NE Moderate’s comment?
@Hope, WastePro is the biggest contributor of Trash on and beside the Roads in Tallahassee. They wont shut the Trap Door on top and when they hit a certain speed it creates a suction on top and sucks the Garbage out of that Trap Door. I have seen it happen many times.
I have Three beefs with them….ONE: You have to call them if you have Household Waste to be picked up even if they are picking up a Pile that is just 20 Feet away from yours. TWO: I will have a LOT of plastic Water Bottles so I would put them in a Plastic Garbage Bag and tie it shut incase the wend blows over the Container so the Bottles don’t go everywhere. For TWO Weeks that wouldn’t take my Recycle so I called them to find out that the don’t accept Plastic Bags. I said that I have done that for over two years and asked what changed. She said they have New Drivers who are doing it by the Book now. I will be dropping them when my Service Plan is up in 45 Days. THREE: Many times I will come home to find my Container out in the Road, far enough where Cars would have to drive around it.
I had a tenant leave a bunch of unwanted furniture on the curb when they moved out. Waste pro sent a truck to pick it all up, including a very obvious glass-topped table that they attempted to pick up with the claw.
It didn’t work, and broken glass was scattered along approximately 7’0x40′ of the front yard, the street, and even onto the property across the street. I spent 4+ hours with a Shop Vac, cleaning up broken glass….
@ John Clark…
The mayor can’t even run the garbage trucks and he’s trying to make us believe he’s got cutting edge airport deals in the works?
@ NE Moderate…
Ben Pingree got kicked out of Wakulla County as their County Administrator. The person who bought his house during the housing crash and houses were under water received a quarter of a million dollar IT contract payout from Leon County. I believe it was the same amount that the house was under water for.
You can’t make this stuff up.
No service at our Betton Hills address week of July 4 despite numerous calls, texts, and emails.
Also it wasn’t long ago that one of their trucks almost backed into me. The truck decided it had turned the wrong way and instead of proceeding and turning around down the road they backed up and almost backed into me had I not alerted them with my horn. I still had to back up so they wouldn’t hit me. Then I pull out onto the highway and there is a Waste Pro truck speeding down the highway with garbage bags flying off the truck.
This is County Administration 101 and the County Administrator Vince Long has failed the county miserably. Mr Long did not do his homework on this company and has put citizens and Waste Pro employees at risk. This is what you get when you have Scott Maddox and Gary Yordon involved.
Wasn’t Waste Pro and the Scott Maddox involvement investigated by the FBI for local corruption?
Hopefully more arrests imminent…
I do not like their trucks speeding on my street. I bet they travel at a speed twice the posted limit. Living in the country, I burn what burns and yard off to the dump that which doesn’t burn. It saves me $$$$ and in this Biden Failed Economy it really helps.
This is a carryover from the Scott Maddox and Gary Yordon corruption as they were the lobbyists handling this deal.
It is ironic that in the Tallahassee Democrat they are reporting County Administrator Vince Long receiving an award yet this is on his watch that he allowed Scott Maddox to be involved in county negotiations for this deal where Scott Maddox received money. This was illegal.
The County passes this deal off as a reduced rate, but what citizens got was reduced and inadequate services. It takes two days for waste and recyclables to be picked up and that has been going on for years. You receive a robocall saying that the rest of your pickup will be the next day. This is unacceptable.
They simply do not have the manpower or equipment to handle this job and it puts the county at a risk for safety, environmental, and health issues.
The bear activity is rampant in Leon County and it is probably due to garbage cans being out on the street for an extra day.
County Administrator Vince long should be terminated or resign immediately for causing this unacceptable dangerous situation.
This should be front page news on the Tallahassee Democrat instead of the city’s airport publicity stunt by TaMaryn Waters.