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Orange County, NC Financial Plan & Rate Study for Solid Waste Enterprise Fund 5.2 EXPENSE REDUCTION STRATEGIES SCS performed a cursory overview of Department programs to identify opportunities to reduce expenses in order to reduce the quantity of General Fund monies to Enterprise Fund. Expense reduction strategies identified include: • Commercial curbside collection and residential drop -off collection of food and other organic wastes currently cost the Department $80 per ton under its contract with Brooks Contracting. The Department could encourage residents to compost at home to reduce expenditure by the Department and keep the waste closer to its point of origin for direct reuse. Alternatively, the County could shift the costs of the program to its largest benefiters, business entities. • Reduce debt servicing costs by continuing to contribute to an equipment reserve fund with which replacement equipment is purchased outright. Consider implementation of an R &E fund as a long -term objective to pay for unexpected costs outright, rather than relying on debt financing. • Consider altering Waste and Recycling Center hours or days of operations to minimize down -time and reduce staff /maintenance costs per customer served. • Establish a long -term financial plan that provides a sustainable financial structure for the Fund. This plan should be formed as a result of a continued evaluation of Department programs to identify issues and inefficiencies (if any exist), optimize the structure of the Department, and find opportunities to further share resources among the four Divisions, in addition to other tasks to increase the effectiveness of the implementation of solid waste and recycling services. 5.3 RATE BENCHMARKING Exhibit 19 graphically illustrates a comparison of the County's FY 2015 -16 Program Fee of $107 with other North Carolina Counties' cumulative Solid Waste Fee rates. As shown, the annual solid waste fees for various municipalities range from a low of $15 to approximately $250. It is unclear what governmental subsidies exist for the communities with the lower fees or what services are provided for the corresponding fees. It is also important to consider the level of service offered by Orange County and the emphasis on environmental justice in regards to waste reduction and recycling, including the achievement of a 64 percent recycling rate. It is not likely to be matched by many, if any, of these jurisdictions. Benchmarking of solid waste agencies is often difficult to accomplish since levels of service and internal charges and subsidies are often difficult to discern from one municipal system to another. As such, most benchmarking programs often deal with individual facilities (e.g., landfills, transfer stations, etc.). There is currently a lack of benchmarking data available in the solid waste industry. SWANA has conducted the most recent benchmarking studies, but these were focused on landfill operations. 29