Borough Landscaping to Stay In-House After Lackluster Bid

The Borough will keep its landscaping service in-house after a bid to outsource it to a private company came in well over the cost of the current services, a development that saves the jobs of five employees who handle landscaping for the Borough.

The Borough to outsource landscaping work on 78 municipal properties. Councilman Alan Brundage, chairman of the budget committee, was hoping to save 50% of the current $225,000 cost of landscaping those properties.

The lone bid the Borough received on Tuesday was worth $225,000 but would have only covered 17 of the 78 properties.

"It wasn't even 50% of 50%," Brundage said.

Brundage said the size of the bid—the document was more than 200 pages long—likely scared off potential bidders.

"A lot of people didn't bid because we wanted the same service," he said. "And if you couldn't give the same service, thank you, but no thank you."

The lackluster bid takes an unpopular option off the table, but the Mayor and Council have to find $112,500 in savings elsewhere to achieve their goal of keeping taxes flat. Brundage said he was still confident the governing body could do that by working with department heads and union leadership.

Mayor Richard LaBarbiera said the bid showed the value of the Borough workers.

"We always knew how good of a job Shade Tree did," LaBarbiera said. "Today we found out that you do it for a fraction—a fraction of the price of what the private sector would."

The Council approved two ordinances that continue the trend over the past year of consolidating departments. Ordinance 11-12 combines the finance, tax collection and tax assessment divisions under a newly formed Finance Department headed by Joseph Citro, financial officer.

Ordinance 11-13 gives the Police Department authority over the Paramus Ambulance Corps and the Office of Emergency Management.