The ability to increase services to residents while decreasing the cost to provide the services is a difficult task. The Villages of Wauconda, North Barrington, Island Lake, Tower Lakes, and Fox River Valley Gardens recently met this challenge by cooperatively bidding out one refuse contract for all five municipalities. The individuals who formed the "joint refuse committee" to work on this project were Mayor James Eschenbauch, Trustee Bruce Christensen, Village Attorney Rudy Magna, and Village Administrator Gerald Sagona from Wauconda, North Barrington Mayor Walter Clarke, Island Lake Trustee Beverly Anderson, Tower Lakes Trustee Maury Van Den Eykel, and Trustee Tony Chrusciel from Fox River Valley Gardens. The committee represented approximately 18,000 residents in 5,500 households.

The first task for the committee was to develop specifications describing service level requirements. A key component in the process was for the committee to agree upon a basic service level. The basic service level included unlimited weekly curbside refuse collection including bulk item removal (furniture, appliances, small amounts of construction debris) and a weekly curbside recycling program collecting aluminum food and beverage containers, metal cans, bi-metal cans, glass food containers, High Density Polyethylene containers, Polyethylene Terephtalate containers. Polystyrene containers, newspapers, corrugated containers, chipboard, magazines, and mixed paper. In order to customize the specifications for individual community preferences, alternate specifications for "toter" cart collection, weekly curbside landscape waste collection, and back door service were added.

The Request For Proposals was sent out to a total of twelve Chicago-area haulers. Four haulers. Laidlaw Waste Systems, Waste Management North, Browning-Ferris Industries, and North Shore Waste Control from Highland Park, submitted bids. Laidlaw Waste Systems, Inc. from Schaumburg, offered the lowest bid: $9.87 per unit per month for three years and for basic service. The alternate bids for toter cart service, back door service, and an unlimited curbside landscape waste collection program were $1.70, $1.47, and $3.95 respectively, which are added on to the monthly basic service cost. Laidlaw's proposal also included a 20% discount for senior citizens, a thirty-three item recycling program including #1-7 plastics, paint cans, telephone books, and aerosol cans, and free service to all governmental offices in each municipality.

The resultant first year savings to the residents is estimated to be $40,000 for North Barrington, $5,000 for Tower Lakes, $3,300 for Fox River Valley Gardens, $27,500 for Island Lake, and approximately $20,000 for Wauconda which includes the savings to the Wauconda school district, park district, library and township highway department for the free refuse collection service. The cost of the curbside landscape waste collection program was literally cut in half for the Villages o Wauconda, Tower Lakes, and Fox River Valley Gardens.

If you would like a copy of the bid specifications please send a self-addressed 9x12 Kraft envelope (with $1.93 postage) to Village of Wauconda, Attn: Refuse Bid Specifications, P.O. Box 785, Wauconda, IL 60084. •

Page 20 / Illinois Municipal Review / April 1995