LANSING, Mich. — The city Lansing is changing its schedule for yard waste pick up, and officials said the staff shortage has a lot to do with it.
“It’s just the fact we don’t have the seasonal workers this year that we would expect for this service,” said Andrew Kilpatrick, director of Lansing’s Public Service Department.
Kilpatrick said the decline in staff was the primary reason why the city decided to go from weekly yard waste pick up to biweekly.
“For yard waste collection, we currently have two and we want about six,” he said.
Yard waste pick-up in Lansing usually runs for eight months out of the year, which means all staff members are seasonal. Kilpatrick said the city has had a hard time finding those workers this year.
“The seasonal workers that we get for yard waste, those pay more because you do need the commercial driver’s license,” he said. “So we are having difficulties finding all seasonal workers.”
The city hopes, with the new biweekly schedule, they will spend less money on overtime.
“I think we might be in the thousands of dollars of savings, but I don’t think we’ll be in the tens of thousands,” Kilpatrick said.
The new schedule of yard pick collection will begin on June 28th.
