Stonington―The Board of Finance gave its approval on Wednesday for the Solid Waste Department to renegotiate a contract with the town’s trash hauler.

F.E. Crandall Disposal approached the town in June and asked to renegotiate the contract or to rebid the contract to manage all the town’s solid waste pickup and handling due to increased costs of repair, labor, maintenance, and diesel fuel.

The current contract costs the town $720,000 per year, and the proposed increase of $2.50 per household would cost the town an additional $223,000, for a total of $943,000 per year.

First Selectman Danielle Chesebrough said, “it was just a mixture of all the issues going on, plus it was the end of the contract, and realizing that we’ve been getting an amazing deal for residents for a long time, it was just time to bring it up to closer to market value.”

In a letter to the board, Jill Senior, the director of solid waste, told the board what surrounding towns pay for trash disposal.

She noted that Ledyard pays $9 per household, in a contract that was signed almost 5 years ago, which includes every other week recycling pick-up, and that the town anticipates significant increases in its next contract.

Additionally, she said Norwich pays $7.35 in a four-year-old contract for weekly garbage pick-up and every other week recycling pick-up. She further noted that the waste disposal company is allowed to use the town’s transfer station for their own use, which offers a substantial financial benefit to the contractor.

The Crandall contract provides for weekly garbage and recycling pickup, as well as handling the town’s textile recycling program, and Christmas tree pickup.

In her letter Senior said, “the request, although poorly timed, is reasonable and renegotiating the contract would be in Stonington’s best interest.”

Chesebrough said, “they’ve been great to us. It would have been better if it was part of the fiscal year normal budget, but it’s just the way the contract ended and we just kind of had to do it.”

She said the finance board gave the solid waste department consent to sign the contract with the understanding that it will have to come back to the board in January to figure out exactly where the additional money will come from. She added there are a number of options to cover the increased costs by adjusting the budget.