Commissioners have indefinitely tabled a proposal to privatize the city's garbage services after hearing impassioned pleas from city workers.
Waste Management told the city in August it would "hire your current collection employees at our current pay scale that meet our pre-employment standards."
Workers weren't sure they'd all be kept.
"The cheapest way is not always the best way," worker John Dames said.
"We're the best thing you have," worker Willie Adams said, drawing applause from several fellow workers at Tuesday's regular commission meeting.
Adams noted that, besides collecting garbage efficiently, workers have at times found and returned wallets and helped a pregnant woman change a tire, mostly without fanfare.
Commissioner Marlene Ross said she'd never consider privatization unless the city hired a consultant to research it, "and we don't have the money."
"I don't understand why in the world you guys would even consider outsourcing that," Commissioner Woodrow Hay said. "I've seen these guys in action. Some things you can't put a dollar sign on."
Tuesday's vote to give a financial advisory committee a year to study privatization was unanimous.
One reason commissioners might not be in such a hurry: They've got a little more money available than they thought.
The city already had decided to move $3.1 million from the sanitation fund to the strapped general fund.
And it would take $1.5 million from its fleet fund.
But the city now has determined the sanitation budget would have $4 million left even after the money is transferred.
Because there's less breathing room in the fleet fund, interim City Manager Lori LaVerriere proposed taking $1.5 million more from the sanitation fund instead.
The remaining $2.5 million in the sanitation fund would be a buffer in a future emergency, such as a hurricane, or at some point might let rates be reduced, LaVerriere said.
