LTC 282-2021 QUARTERLY UPDATE CITYWIDE CLEANLINESSMIAMI BEACH
NO. LTC# LETTER TO COMMISSION
FROM: Alina T. Hudak, City Mana
DATE: July 8, 2021
SUBJECT: QUARTERLY UPDATE: CITYWIDE CLEANLINESS
The purpose of this Letter to Commission is to provide you with a quarterly update on citywide
cleanliness, as requested at the July 25, 2020 Neighborhood & Quality of Life Committee.
BACKGROUND
The Sanitation Division has been very successful in its mission to maintain cleanliness throughout
the City. The Sanitation Division has also received high marks as it relates to preparing for,
implementing strategic plans, and maintaining cleanliness during prepandemic highly attended
events such as: Art Basel, Halloween, Food and Wine Festival, Art Deco Weekend, Superbowl
LIV, and Spring Break. In addition, Sanitation has continued to work through COVID-19 providing
citywide services for litter control, pressure cleaning and street sweeping.
It is important to note that the Cleanliness Index Program has been suspended since March 2020,
due to the pandemic. The City plans to restart the Cleanliness Index with a test quarter (Q) in Q4
and a live quarter beginning in Q1-22. Surface lot cleanliness duties were also reassigned to the
Parking Department as a result of a budget shortfall in FY20. These services continued to be
rendered by the City's janitorial services contractor, SFM Services, Inc. on an as-needed basis.
ANALYSIS
As the City entered Fiscal Year (FY) 20/21 the Sanitation Division continued its diligent efforts to
observe COVID-19 protocols in order to protect the safety of all employees. However, during its
first quarter, the Division was challenged with a reduction in staff of 11 full time in-house positions
due to attrition, layoffs, and the loss of 45 budgeted temporary staffing positions.
In an effort to provide uninterrupted City service, the Sanitation Division received approval to
rehire over 20 temporary staffers to help cover the gaps due to the unexpected vacancies, and
the increased amount of pedestrian traffic in the Mixed Use Entertainment (MXE) District since
December 2020.
There have also been modifications made to the scope of services that the Sanitation Division
provides in order to assist with activities related to the prevention of the spread of COVID-19. The
Division also assisted with trash removal and recycling associated with food distributions. The
pressure washing crews also altered their routes to include augmenting and increasing the
cleaning of bus stops and benches.
During the second quarter of FY21, the Spring Break high impact weekends were extremely busy
and challenging. Staff did an amazing job in keeping the MXE clean, and continues to do so as
high impact weekends continue throughout the year.
282-2021
Additionally, the Sanitation Division has seen an increase in Code violations and illegal dumping,
as well as an increase in requests from the Police Department in residential areas to remediate
situations related to homeless activities.
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