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PARKERSBURG — Two companies submitted proposals to provide sanitation service to the City of Parkersburg, one with recycling, one without.

Parkersburg has its own sanitation department, but a joint council committee voted in June to seek requests for proposals from private companies to take over those services, as they do in surrounding municipalities.

The city suspended recycling services earlier in May, citing staffing issues with numerous vacancies in the department and an increase in employee call-offs.

When the request for proposals was approved, Mayor Tom Joyce said it did not necessarily mean the city would contract out its trash service but would gather information and keep its options open.

“The administration will likely make a recommendation, but ultimately it will be up to City Council to make” a decision, Joyce said Friday.

That’s because each proposal is for a five-year agreement. Multi-year contracts require council approval.

Joyce said the city was still reviewing the two proposals from qualified vendors, Rumpke and Waste Management. Copies of the bid documents were not immediately available Friday afternoon, but Joyce described the offers in broad strokes, without specifying which company made which.

One would include only solid waste removal, not recycling. Under that, “our current rates would be acceptable for five years,” Joyce said.

The administration proposed and council approved a sanitation fee increase during the budget process this spring, with Joyce citing the general fund’s subsidy of the sanitation fund by $882,000 in fiscal years 2023 and 2024. Beginning July 1, the monthly fee rose from $18 to $22 a month.

The other proposal includes recycling and has “graduated rate increases annually,” Joyce said. It would start out lower than the current rates but would be higher by the end of the contract, he said.

“We need to figure out, do we want to mandate that all customers pay for recycling?” Joyce said. “Or do we want to try to transition it to where we offer it through, most likely, a third-party vendor?”

Joyce said the decision of whether to privatize the service will ultimately be council’s.

“We’re at a crisis situation, and it’s getting worse,” he said, adding that four trash routes were down for three days this week due to call-offs.

“Those employees who have been showing up regularly in the Sanitation Department have my full and unadulterated respect and appreciation,” Joyce said.

Those who regularly call off multiple times a week have made the situation worse and the other employees’ jobs more difficult, he said.

Council President Mike Reynolds said he had not had a chance to review the bids yet but looks forward to learning more about them. He said he expects council to review the bids as the Committee of the Whole at some point this month.

Reynolds said many people have been patient with the delays in trash pickup.

“Council and most of the public’s really looking forward to a solution,” he said.

Even before the suspension of recycling, sanitation service was a frequent topic of discussion at council meetings, with some residents and employees calling for higher wages for the workers in the department in the fall of 2024. In addition to a 4.2% cost-of-living adjustment for all employees, excluding elected officials, an additional $2-an-hour raise was approved for those with commercial driver’s licenses, including in the sanitation department.

Joyce said at the time that might necessitate an additional sanitation fee increase next year.

Some have argued an additional increase is needed to fill vacant positions.

Evan Bevins can be reached at ebevins@newsandsentinel.com.