Wednesday, March 25, 2026, 9:30 a.m. (Austin time), Austin City Hall
Committee: Climate, Water, Environment, and Parks Committee
The Climate, Water, Environment, and Parks Committee met March 25, 2026, with item one (minutes) postponed due to discrepancies. The committee received a briefing from Austin Resource Recovery on performance measure updates, covering KPIs such as customer satisfaction, lost-time injuries, on-time collection, diversion rates, and Universal Recycling Ordinance reporting, plus ISO 9001 certification and zero waste plan milestones. It then received a briefing from Austin Parks and Recreation on the potential 2026 bond project, in which Parks' $410 million request was reduced to a $140 million recommendation within a $700 million draft package. Council members asked questions about KPIs, multifamily composting, brush collection outreach, pool and playscape maintenance, and land banking; no votes were taken and the meeting adjourned at 10:45 am.
0:02 Everybody, we will call this meeting of the climate water environment parks committee to order.
0:09 It is Wednesday, March 25th at 9:42 am we are at 3 0 1 west second street.
0:16 Uh, and we will begin the day with public comment.
0:20 I believe we have one individual.
0:24 Yes, sir. Um, paul robbins.
0:27 Good morning, mr. Robbins. Good morning.
0:37 Committee. Um, uh, for the record, I'm paul robbins, and you all know that I'm vice chair of the
0:44 resource management commission. Uh, several of our members spoke at the last meeting about the texas gas service
0:53 franchise negotiation. We relayed a summary of a multifaceted resolution on advice we gave to council.
1:02 I hope you'll take most or all of it.
1:05 What brings me here today is to ask council to go on record about what you want in
1:12 this franchise. While our commission is grateful that city staff has taken a resolution into consideration, we are
1:24 not a sovereign board and we do not speak for council.
1:29 This is a once in a generation opportunity to get long needed reforms.
1:36 Please go on record, uh, about policy that you want to see.
1:43 I also urge you not to be crowded by what I think is an artificial deadline.
1:50 Uh, staff wants to bring first reading of this to you on May 7th.
1:57 The franchise expiration can be extended if both parties agree.
2:04 Please take the extra time to get this right if it's needed.
2:11 Appreciate it. Thank you very much.
2:14 Appreciate all the work you've done on this.
2:16 Um, members, we are not going to do item number one.
2:20 There's some discrepancies in the minutes that need to be fixed.
2:22 So those will come back at our next meeting.
2:25 So we'll skip right to item number two, which is a briefing on performance measure updates from Austin
2:31 resource recovery. And I see director mchale here with help.
2:38 Yeah, I brought my back up.
2:39 So, good morning. Uh, always good idea.
2:41 Good morning <laugh>, uh, council members.
2:43 Richard mchale, director frost resource recovery.
2:45 And I have here with me, uh, gina mckinley, a deputy director for Austin resource recovery.
2:50 So, um, thanks for the, um, opportunity to discuss our performance, uh, measures and how we're doing, uh,
2:57 not just our kpis, but we've also recently were, uh, received iso certification.
3:03 So there's also some goals in there that we have, and also I think we're gonna touch on
3:07 some of our goals in our strategic plan.
3:09 Um, and, uh, with that, I'll go ahead and, and let gina go ahead and start that off.
3:16 Good morning. Uh, like the director said, my name is gina mckinley, deputy director for Austin resource recovery.
3:22 And I'd love to talk to you today about some of the performance of our department, starting out
3:29 with our key performance indicators.
3:32 Um, you'll see those on the screen here.
3:34 I'll walk through them and point out some highlights.
3:38 The first on the screen is the average customer satisfaction with the quality of our curbside and household
3:44 hazardous waste services. This one, there's not a lot of data.
3:47 It's a ser, it's a community wide survey that is administered every two years.
3:51 So we should be getting the results, um, this spring for the fy 25 results.
3:57 And then we would get them again a couple years after that.
4:00 You see the, the metric and fy 23 is 71.7%.
4:06 Um, there is an opportunity for comments in that field.
4:10 What we see with this particular scores, the comments are typically about the household hazardous waste facility and
4:16 the recycle and reuse dropoff facility, the location, because it is in the southeast portion of the city,
4:21 it's harder for some folks to get to.
4:23 We're hopeful to see that number increase now that we've implemented the on-demand services for household hazardous waste
4:29 to make that more convenient for more of our community.
4:34 The second indicator you see there is related to lost time injury rate.
4:39 Um, this one, as you can see, is trending in the wrong direction.
4:42 Um, there was a spike in fy 25, um, significant from the previous two years.
4:49 Um, so digging into the data here, obviously safety is one of our top priorities at Austin resource
4:54 recovery, and we want those injuries to go down as well as lost time related to injuries.
4:59 Um, so in looking at the data, our injuries range from a beasting, um, to things that are
5:05 more severe. The bulk of injuries that we see within the department are sprains and strains.
5:11 Um, so we've been able to look at that data and actually identify when the most of those
5:15 injuries are happening. What we see is that it's really during our peak season.
5:19 So right now when organics and compost is very heavy, we see more sprains and strains in that
5:24 work group. Over the course of the summer, we see more strains and sprains in our recycling and
5:29 trash work groups. More folks are home and there's more volume generated.
5:34 So what we've been able to do is, um, really dig into this data to try to reset
5:39 that trend. I'm happy to report that this year we're seeing some positive results.
5:44 Um, one of the issues that we've had is in returning injured employees back to work, um, we
5:51 had some struggles with doing that safely.
5:53 So we've created some programs specific targeted training to those injuries that we see recurring.
5:58 So now employees can, we have a two week training program that is specific to the injury type,
6:03 and we can return employees to work safely more quickly.
6:07 Another cause for the spike is our human resources and, uh, safety teams have, have worked together to
6:13 really improve the reporting so we can get a more accurate picture of what's happening, um, related to
6:18 injuries in our operations.
6:20 Um, but just a note on that one and why you see the spike.
6:23 Um, the next measure is related to our, uh, on time collection of our curbside services.
6:29 That one is trending about the same over the years.
6:31 Our goal is to be on time every time.
6:33 Um, we know that that's not the case every time, but we are trending pretty well on that
6:37 one. Um, the next measure is the percent of curbside collected materials diverted from the landfill.
6:44 Um, and this one you can see it's relatively steady over the past few years.
6:49 There was a spike in fy 23 that's attributed to winter storm mara.
6:54 Um, so there was a large amount of, uh, debris that was diverted through compost, and that's what's
6:59 accounts for that increase.
7:01 Um, obviously we want to keep that trend going upward, um, as a city with a zero waste
7:07 skull. And so we're looking, um, very heavily at additional measures so that we can better evaluate where
7:13 we are. Um, recently, this was a topic of conversation at the audit and finance committee where I
7:18 talked about some of the challenges.
7:20 We see lightweighting of material, which can skew that number a little bit.
7:24 Um, we're currently working with the recycling partnership to do a capture rate study, which gives us really
7:30 detailed information about what's going into our recycling trash and composting carts.
7:34 We'll be testing an educational intervention and then following up with a post capture rate study.
7:39 So we're really excited about that to see if there's some, um, educational and other practices that we
7:44 can implement that will improve our participation rate, reduce our contamination rate, and ultimately drive us closer to
7:52 that zero waste goal.
7:53 And then the final kpi, uh, that I'll talk about is our percent of universal recycling ordinance affected
8:00 properties reporting access to recycling for their employees and tenants.
8:04 Um, some things to note on this measure, if you're not familiar, the universal recycling ordinance requires all
8:09 commercial and multifamily properties to provide access to recycling and composting.
8:14 Um, so this measure is really based on the individual property submitting their form.
8:20 And what we found over the years is there's changeover in owners for businesses and properties that causes
8:26 some of the lag and the percentage.
8:28 Um, we also find that there are times when a business is actually doing what they're supposed to,
8:32 but they haven't submitted the form.
8:34 Um, so that wouldn't, they would be doing what is intended, but it wouldn't be accounted for in
8:38 this measure. And then the final note is that we are working really closely with development services and
8:43 the code enforcement team, um, to help us move this measure along so that we get a higher
8:49 percentage of participation. Uh, we have a business outreach team with an Austin resource recovery that does a
8:56 lot of work with business, the business community, and those affected by the uro to help them get
9:01 programs in place, make sure they understand what's required, and they're doing all the right things.
9:06 Um, there are some properties that enforcement might be the action that is needed, and we're working very
9:11 closely with, um, the development services team on that.
9:16 Can I pause you right there?
9:17 Sure. Sorry to interrupt.
9:19 But we have, according to that, we, we have a, a list or we know who the universal
9:26 recycling ordinance applies to.
9:27 We know according to this, who is participating.
9:32 So what is our stick for the other 30% is can we issue a fine or what we
9:40 can, there's a criminal, criminal penalty associated with non-compliance of the universal recycling ordinance.
9:45 Um, in the early days of the ordinances ordinance, that was one of the challenges.
9:49 We needed actual code officers to enforce the ordinance.
9:52 Um, and knowing that there's a stretch in the code enforcement staff, um, that wasn't available.
9:58 So we did everything we could to, um, kind of use the carrot, not the stick.
10:04 Um, and now we didn't, we can see that the numbers have kind of stagnated and the enforcement
10:09 is the path that we're moving forward.
10:11 So just last year, there were staff that were moved into the development services group, um, for a
10:17 code enforcement team, specifically for the universal recycling ordinances.
10:21 Our team works very closely with them.
10:22 This is still in its early stages that that transition just happened at the beginning of the fiscal
10:26 year. So we're, and this is an annual reporting measure.
10:30 Um, the reports are due in February, early February.
10:34 So I'm hopeful right now would be the time that that enforcement action would be taking place.
10:38 It's kind of the grace period is over.
10:40 So I'm hopeful that the, the number we see next year is different based on that enforcement action.
10:46 Okay. Thank you. Mm-hmm <affirmative>.
10:49 Uh, director mikhail mentioned that we're proud to say that at the beginning of the year, our department
10:55 did receive iso 9,001 2015 certification.
11:00 So we've been working on this for probably a couple of years, um, to bring our department into
11:06 alignment with the iso standards.
11:09 Um, as part of that certification process, we worked across the department, really focused on quality delivery of
11:16 services, making sure we're delivering on time services to our customers with the quality that is expected of
11:22 them. So I won't go into, there's a, a ton of measures that we've put in place in
11:26 addition to those that the department was already tracking.
11:29 Um, but just wanted to note that, that it's a, it's an additional data set.
11:33 Um, not necessarily all new data, some new data to make sure that we're tracking our processes appropriately.
11:39 Um, here's just a sample of some of that data.
11:41 So you'll see, and in most cases we're we are meeting or exceeding our targets, um, the outlier
11:47 was that clean creeks program you see at the bottom, average number of cleanups per site per month.
11:52 Um, because we have the iso tracking process in place, we could see that we were lagging, um,
11:57 and falling below our target.
11:59 Um, when we have now, well exceeded that target, um, are exceeding it, I think, pretty regularly.
12:04 Um, but this, the iso, the iso process has really been a great tool for accountability.
12:10 In our department. We we're tracking things like percentage of trash recycling and composting special services collected on
12:17 time. The pro center is our customer service team that handles escalations that come from 3 1 1.
12:23 Um, also looking at the recycle and reuse drop-off center and the customer satisfaction there.
12:31 I also wanted to touch on some of our strategic goals.
12:34 So what you'll see on the screen are some of the strategic goals in our zero waste comprehensive
12:40 plan. Some of those are also mentioned in the climate equity plan.