Brookline

Brookline to outsource trash collection after years of difficulty hiring workers

“We’ve had five new hires leave because of this unpredictability and not wanting to do that job”

NBC Universal, Inc.

Brookline is planning to start outsourcing the Massachusetts town's trash collection to a private company, in large part because it's has had trouble hiring people to do the job.

Director of Highway and Sanitation Kevin Johnson has been trying for years to fill vacant positions and has been challenged with little to no interest, prolonged injuries, illnesses and overall challenges of getting the work done, Public Works Commissioner Erin Chute explained to the Town Select Board on Jan. 14.

WATCH ANYTIME FOR FREE

icon

Stream NBC10 Boston news for free, 24/7, wherever you are.

“The biggest challenge with in-house sanitation services is we’re not staffed to provide them. We’ve had difficulty filling these positions. We’ve advertised them for years and we have been unable to successfully fill them,” Chute said. “We currently have nine in-house positions for collection services provided by DPW and, of those nine positions, four are filled with full-time staff. And generally, five of those individuals don’t want to be on that function.”

She said this has had a negative impact on other service functions such as line painting, commercial areas cleaning, maintenance, potholes and side ramp work that they were formerly able to do with in-house crews.

This “has led to poor morale as employees have been shifted to the sanitation function, often last minute, and find their job to be unpredictable and not the job they felt they were hired to do for the town,” said Chute. “We’ve had five new hires leave because of this unpredictability and not wanting to do that job.”

The problem isn't unique to Brookline, according to Jim Durkin, legislative director for public sector worker union AFSCME 93.

“For a six-month or longer period, we’ve been working with them, and they just cannot find enough employees to do this job,” he said. “That is a problem across all government services.”

In her presentation, Chute shared data on injuries reported on the job, 23 within Fiscal Year 2021 and 2024 that yielded over 1,100 out-of-work days.

Durkin said it's “very difficult work. They’re the unsung heroes of public services.”

She noted in her presentation to the board that the town also faces challenges with an aging fleet of trash trucks that are expensive to maintain.

Starting July 1, the town will contract Casella, a private waste management company that's already picking up recycling in Brookline, to handle residential trash as well. The five year contract will cost the town $26,356,829. In the first fiscal year, 2026, Casella’s services will cost about $62,000 more than handling them in-house.

The board also approved a 10% to 12% fee increase for residents, depending on the size of bin they use, which Chute explained is not only for the contracted services but based on overall cost of sanitation services, which includes several other town employees, such as transfer station and scale operations, enforcement and oversight, administration, customer service and billing. She said the benefits of contracting sanitation services include cost predictability, more reliable service, reduced liability and improved safety, less worker’s compensation risk and no drain on other operations.

Contact Us