Charges for trash overages may reek

By Tony Cook

Wednesday, June 14, 2006 | 7:11 a.m.

Property managers in Clark County are upset that the primary local garbage removal company pays its employees to take photos of overfilled trash containers in order to charge extra collection fees.

Moreover, the nearly $50 fee that the company charges property managers for the so-called "overages" might not even be permitted under Clark County code, county officials said Tuesday.

The new garbage company policy began 18 months ago, when Bob Coyle took over as area president for Republic Services, the waste management firm that has an exclusive contract with Clark County.

"All we want is for property owners to get the appropriate amount of service for the amount of trash they generate," Coyle said.

But Coyle acknowledges that he did not consult legal counsel or the district attorney's office before implementing the new fee of $47.94 for each 3-cubic-yard dumpster with trash stacked higher than the container's lip.

The Clark County manager's office plans to look into the legitimacy of the fee after being informed of the policy by the Sun. Clark County Chief Administrative Officer Don Burnette said he would contact Republic and the district attorney's office to find out whether the fee is allowed.

Coyle said the company is relying on a county code provision that allows for "special one-time on-call collection charges."

"I just looked at the code and said, 'This is a special pick-up in the trash collection business,' " he said.

But property managers say that provision was intended to allow them to ask for a special trash pickup during times like Christmas, when an unusually large amount of trash is generated.

"They are charging us for a special pick-up when there is no special pick-up," said Barbara Holland, president of H&L Realty, which manages about 5,000 residential units and 800,000 square feet of commercial and retail space.

County officials also are skeptical.

"I'm not at the point that I can say I am comfortable with how that provision of code is being applied," Burnette said.

Property managers also say the policy results in garbage collectors skipping some bins on trash day and setting up photos.

"This is one of the biggest scams," Holland said of the trash company's policy of paying garbage truck drivers $4 for every overfilled trash containers they photograph to justify the added fee being assessed.

"It's self-fulfilling."

At H&L's Desert Club Apartments on Koval Lane, collectors did not empty 14 out of 46 dumpsters on June 2, said Holland, who is also legislative chairwoman for the Institute of Real Estate Managers, a professional organization of 160 local property managers.

Several of her properties have been hit with fees of more than $300 this year.

At Southern Vista, a condominium community on Russell Road in the southwest valley, homeowner association secretary Esther Lucibello said drivers did not empty bins that were not full, "only to bill our association for having 'overloaded bins' on their next visit."

Brenda Lovato, regional property manager for General Services Co., which owns 1,898 apartment units in the valley, said Lucibello's experience is common.

"Why are these men getting paid more money?" she said, referring to individual trash collectors. "They already get an hourly wage. It's in their best interest to skip bins."

While $4 per photo might not sound like much, Holland notes that if a driver skips two bins at each property and serves 10 properties, he could make an extra $80 a day, or about $20,000 a year.

Coyle acknowledged that some collectors have been disciplined for skipping bins, although none has been fired.

"Some collectors were a little too aggressive with the photos, and we didn't bill for those," he said.

Coyle said he did not know how much revenue the policy generates or how much an average trash collector makes taking photographs, but said that Republic employees snap about 1,000 photos a month, about 60 percent of which are used to charge fees.

Assuming 600 fees are assessed monthly and assuming an average dumpster size of 3 cubic yards the policy would have resulted in additional revenue of more than $500,000 for Republic since it was implemented.

But Coyle said his company was not interested in more money. Rather, it simply wants property owners to buy or rent appropriately sized dumpsters or increase the number of collection days that they purchase from the company.

"It's a health and safety issue," he said, noting that some property managers allow trash containers to become wobbly skyscrapers of garbage.

Coyle said he informed the county about the policy when it was implemented and heard no objections.

Republic Services, whose exclusive contract with the county runs until 2025, contributed $73,500 to county commissioner campaigns last year, even though no commissioners were up for re-election.

Holland, meanwhile, said she is talking to her attorneys about bringing legal action against Republic in an attempt to recoup the fees.

"If our attorneys agree, we are prepared to do a lawsuit, and I bet a whole lot of management companies would join us in a class action lawsuit," she said.

Las Vegas, where Republic also has an exclusive contract, is revising its waste collection ordinance. As proposed, the revision adds language that specifically bans overflowing dumpsters and allows Republic to charge violators a fee.