Falls City Council expected drop Modern as city's waste disposal vendor

Rick Pfeiffer -, Niagara Gazette, Niagara Falls, N.Y.
Updated ·3 min read

Mar. 20—Niagara Falls City Council members appear ready to end a decades-old contract with Modern Disposal Services for trash and recycling collection.

At their meeting later today, the city lawmakers will consider a recommendation from Mayor Robert Restaino that they approve a contract with Cassella Waste Management, a Clifton Park, NY, company, to replace an expiring contract with Modern. The Lewiston-based company has provided refuse and recycling collection, processing and disposal services to the Falls since the late 1990s.

At that time, city officials believed they could save money by eliminating garbage and recyclables collection in the Department of Public Works by contracting the service out to a private company. Since then, the cost of successive contracts with Modern has risen to the point where, in 2019, then-Mayor Paul Dyster proposed the creation of a solid waste disposal or "user" fee to cover a $4 million gap in the city's budget.

That gap, Dyster said, stemmed from the rising yearly cost of contracts with Modern. Dyster proposed a $218-per-year fee, but that proposal was cut by the City Council to $181 a year.

The fee, which is billed directly to property owners, has never been raised and has been reauthorized every year as part of the city's budget approval process. While the fee has remained unchanged, the city's cost for garbage collection has increased by about $400,000 a year as part of an escalator clause in the Modern contracts.

To cover the difference between what the city will collect from the fee in 2024, and the actual costs in the current Modern contract, Restaino's administration proposed an allocation from the city's general fund to subsidize those costs. The mayor said Tuesday that the proposed Cassella contract is "much more in line with our refuse fee" revenue.

City officials had worried that Modern might have been the only bidder for a new refuse collection contract. However, the city received bids from Modern, Casella and an unidentified third company.

Restaino declined to comment on the bids by Modern and the third company, but a summary of the Casella contract, provided to the council, pegs the first year cost of the five-year contract at $4.8 million. City Council Chair Jim Perry found that cost encouraging.

"(The Casella contract) saves us a couple of million dollars," Perry said. "We've gotten so many complaints about Modern, it's time to move on."

Restaino said the Casella contract will not lead to a change in "scheduled services." But the mayor said he is hoping for better customer service from Casella.

"It's a company that has committed itself to customer service," the mayor said. "In a meeting with us, they told us they wanted people to get to know the crews that operate in their neighborhood like they do their mailman. I think people will be cautiously optimistic (about improved customer service)."

The mayor acknowledged that Modern's reputation for customer service has been badly battered over close to 30 years of service.

"We appreciate Modern's commitment to the city for all these years," Restaino said. "But we need to zero in on customer service."