Southland Mayor Gary Tong and Gore Mayor Tracy Hicks broke protocol yesterday to release the tendering information after Invercargill Mayor Sir Tim Shadbolt used his casting vote on Wednesday night to vote against taking the contract away from Southland disAbility Enterprises (SdE).
The Southland District and Gore District Councils had voted in favour of WasteNet's recommendation for a new contract with a different provider.
Mr Tong and Mr Hicks said they had "serious concerns" about the process because of Invercargill's decision.
The three councils contract recycling through their joint committee, WasteNet. The contract is now held by SdE, which employs 82 people with disabilities, but finishes at the end of the month.
SdE revealed to families of employees it was not the preferred tenderer last month, which created community pushback.
The Invercargill council's decision meant the tender process remained live and would be referred back to WasteNet for further discussion, they said.
Mr Hicks said getting community backlash without the public knowing information about the other tenderer was part of the reason for releasing the information.
"I think we've got a situation where we've got a tender process that's been worked through and is at a bit of a stalemate. Everybody can have the facts before them now so they can make their own minds up."
The mayors said WasteNet offered to roll over SdE's present service on the same terms and conditions for another year to allow for a transition period, but it rebuffed the offer.
SdE wanted "more money for less production", the mayors said.
"SdE then asked for an extra $700,000 above its contract of $1.13million annually to see it through to the end of 2019. Negotiations were stalled while WasteNet offered a loan and financial expertise to assist."
While WasteNet did not get clarity on SdE's finances, it advanced $380,000 in monthly payments which would be taken off the exit payment should the contract not be renewed, they said.
"SdE management would not budge on its demands and WasteNet could not justify renewing the contract for another eight years without considering other options first."
It then put the contract to tender last November. The preferred tenderer's proposal included a new automated material recovery facility to be built in Invercargill.
"The use of automated equipment would have provided a safe working environment for employees, reducing health and safety risks created by the current manual sorting process."
At the time of entering into negotiations with the preferred tenderer there was an $11 million difference in price between the two proposals over the 16-year contract, they said.
Sir Tim said he did not want to comment as the tender was still live. He stood by his decision to vote against the preferred tenderer and was concerned the other mayors had released information on the process.
SdE general manager Hamish McMurdo declined to comment yesterday.
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Sounds like Mayor Shadbolt is protecting ‘social contracting’ I.e. giving council work to a disadvantaged group who would otherwise risk facing unemployment. People in Dunedin may remember how some people associated with an ant-social group here went to a DCC council meeting public forum, asked for work and got some. DCC claimed this was a management decision , rather than a political decision and so could be made by staff, not elected reps. I disagree. Social contracting might cost more, as seems to be the case in Invercargill, and how much more is a matter of public interest. And so is which group should get work. As a public forum speaker later pointed out to the DCC, people disadvantaged through no fault of their own should arguably take precedence over those reaping the consequences of bad life choices. DCC still needs to fix this.