Here’s the thing about contract enforcement: It can be a double-edged sword.
Republic Services will be enforcing the clause in the contract it negotiated with the City of Morgantown that allows it to raise rates this year. The $1.59 per month increase will hit residential customers starting Feb. 28. This is on top of a Public Service Commission-approved increase of $2.43, so customers will actually see a nearly $4 jump on their bill.
Morgantown City Council wasn’t happy to hear that, and we’re sure Morgantown residents weren’t pleased, either, considering Republic has been providing … well, garbage services for several years now. Council made a huge mistake when it renewed Republic’s contract without even considering other bids. And now we’ll all be paying the price.
Council can’t retract the rate increase because Republic is contractually entitled to it.
But by the same token, the City of Morgantown is contractually entitled to enforce penalties on Republic for poor performance. (There are few things we can all agree on, but we think everyone can agree that Republic’s performance has been less than satisfactory.)
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, since it seems the city hasn’t received the message yet: Every time Republic delivers sub-par service, issue a fine or penalty. The company will never clean up its act (pun intended) until it has a great enough incentive to do so. Complaints are obviously not enough, so it’s time to hit Republic where it hurts — in the bottom line.
And if all the fines Republic has accrued just happened to equal the total cost of its rate increases, how serendipitous.
