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Sanit Productivity Picking Up After Suffering Due to Virus's Impact

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The pandemic, a staffing shortage and fiscal problems exacerbated by then-President Donald Trump's decision to deny emergency Federal aid to cities and states resulted in dirtier streets and a major drop in sanitation enforcement in New York City, according to the most-recent Mayor's Management Report.

The Department of Sanitation reported that in fiscal 2021, which ended June 30, the percentage of city streets "rated acceptably clean decreased 2.7 percent" which the agency attributed "to the reduction in litter basket and mechanical broom service related to the financial crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic."

Baskets Produce Rebound

The restoration of sidewalk litter-basket collection in September 2020 helped the agency's percentage of clean sidewalks improve from 96.8 percent in Fiscal Year 2020 to 97.6 percent in the last fiscal year.

The agency reported, however, that the number of lots cleaned up dropped more than 60 percent—from 3,098 down to 1,231—due "to the shift of uniformed staff to back-fill staff shortages in core operations such as refuse and recycling collection."


 A few of our stories and columns are now in front of the paywall. We at The Chief-Leader remain committed to independent reporting on labor and civil service. It's been our mission since 1897. You can have a hand in ensuring that our reporting remains relevant in the decades to come. Consider supporting The Chief, which you can do for as little as $2.25 a month.

There was a marked decline in the number of violations issued for dirty sidewalks, from 56,844 in Fiscal Year 2020 to 42,694, because the agency opted "to focus only on the most-egregious sanitation conditions."

As part of its triage strategy, the agency undertook close to 700 special clean-ups, a 244-percent increase in special efforts where sanitary conditions were most at risk.

Cites Staff Shortages

"It was dirtier, but think about what happened during that time," said Harry Nespoli, president of the Uniformed Sanitationmen's Association. "[Mayor de Blasio] cut the basket collections. We had no manpower to be out there and that's when we were waiting for all of the money [from Washington]."

He noted his members battled the virus but kept solid-waste collection intact even as the volume of garbage being generated by locked-down New Yorkers spiked significantly.

"If we did not do that...just think about all of that garbage that would have been left at the houses," he said during an Oct. 5 phone interview. "It would have only deepened that disaster if we hadn't been able to maintain that basic level of sanitation."

"You know, it's one of many, many situations that unquestionably was affected by COVID," Mayor de Blasio explained on NY1's "Inside City Hall" earlier this month. "That's not an excuse, it's just a reality—a lot got thrown off." 

Predicted by Garcia

When she resigned in September 2020, eventually running for Mayor, then-Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia said the cuts to her department convinced her that service levels would suffer. 

The Mayor told NY1 that more recently, after an infusion of stimulus aid once President Biden took office, "We're putting a lot money back. Sanitation is picking up a lot of ground now."

The $1.9-trillion American Rescue Plan Act approved strictly with Democratic support in Congress, included $350 billion in aid to state and local governments.

Mr. Nespoli said it would still be a while before the city returned to the pre-pandemic levels of service, however.

"They didn't hire anybody for two years and we have had a massive retirement from our members," he said. "We were down really low, and I just visited our first new class." He said hiring had been slowed by coronavirus-linked  issues at the state Department of Motor Vehicles, which issues the Commercial Driver's Licenses required to operate Sanitation vehicles.

Toiled Long, Retiring Early

Mr. Nespoli says he's seen his members that are eligible for retirement "run out the door even though they could have gone another five years but with this pandemic they just are leaving and when I ask them where they are going, they say "we're going south.''

"I saw this workforce here have to come to work, mandated to come to work, get sick with the virus, go home, give it to their family, get better and then come back to work—that's what they did," he said. "I had it. I took it home to my wife a year ago and I thought I was going to lose my wife, and I got through it. We lost five [union] brothers and sisters from working outside."

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