93.9 The Eagle – The News and Talk of Columbia, MO
Changes are coming to Columbia trash pickup, but you won’t see roll carts.
Workers will start out making $22 an hour, a $5 raise. The city has trouble keeping enough staff to pick up trash bags from the curb.
Councilman Matt Pitzer says the raise just puts a bandage on a bad system. He voted against the amendment as part of the council budget process on Monday night.
“I am in favor of giving everybody a raise if we could. Nobody else in the city is getting a raise because we can’t afford it.”
Solid waste workers will make almost as much per hour as police officers, and more than firefighters ($20/hour), once the raise takes effect.
The city council decided in August not to put a possible change to roll carts for trash on the November ballot. Pitzer wanted that.
“We are not willing to make the difficult choice that really needs to be made.”
