QUESTION
What areas have seen increased need for litter basket pickups due to changed work habits with more people working from home?
0:28:18
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157 sec
Commissioner Tisch states that litter basket service levels have remained at historically high levels in recent years with the help of budget allocations from the council, resulting in significantly reduced litter complaints about overflowing baskets.
- The department adjusts litter basket service levels seasonally and monthly based on anticipated usage patterns.
- She does not specifically mention changes related to increased remote work impacting service needs in certain areas.
- Funding for litter basket service has been negotiated annually between the council and administration during the budget process.
- The council aims to make this funding a stable baseline item rather than subject to annual negotiations.
Justin L. Brannan
0:28:18
With the the change in work habits, where have you have you seen increased litter basket need for increased litter basket pickups in areas that where maybe in the past people weren't working as much from home?
0:28:30
Or
Jessica Tisch
0:28:34
As you know, for the past years, we have been running historic levels of litter basket service.
0:28:42
Some baskets are serviced three times a day.
0:28:46
And we've done that largely with the help and partnership, with the Council, which during the adopted budget works with the administration to pick that litter basket funding number.
0:28:57
I think we've landed in a good place over the past 2 years, and we have seen litter complaints about overflowing litter baskets go down significantly since we had achieve that funding level.
0:29:12
As to whether the residential the the patterns have changed, An important thing to keep in mind on our litter basket service is like we really study this and we change sometimes the level of service that a basket gets, not just season to season, but month to month.
0:29:32
So for example, in the winter season, we don't need as much.
0:29:36
Litter basket service as we use in the spring and summer when more people are out using the streets.
Joaquin Eleno
0:29:42
Right.
Justin L. Brannan
0:29:45
So and just just to clarify, there's no change in level of service with the change in funding from federal to city dollars.
Jessica Tisch
0:29:52
There is no change.
Justin L. Brannan
0:29:55
The council has often had to negotiate at adoption for the provision of additional funding for a litter basket pickup service each year.
0:30:04
This is something that we would love to see baseline.
0:30:06
Would you agree with that?
0:30:11
Just tug your earlobe twice.
Jessica Tisch
0:30:17
I've been around long enough to know that this is something that historically has been worked out between the council and the administration as part of the adopted budget.
0:30:32
I will say, at this point, it doesn't really affect us so much any more on which budget it ends up in as long as we can do this summer hiring sanitation workers to support the level of service.
0:30:50
We've been in very good shape the past few years with historically high numbers of sanitation workers.