The next time a sanitation worker collects their trash, University Park residents may want to hand them an icy treat to go with it.
The city is struggling to recruit and retain qualified staff for its sanitation division. University Park needs a minimum of 20 employees to operate all of its collection routes appropriately, and right now that number is hovering at 18, director of public works and community development Keegan Littrell told the city council during a July 7 meeting.
Staffing challenges aren’t new to the city — they’ve been an issue since 2021. The problem also isn’t unique to University Park. There is a national shortage of employees in the solid waste collection industry, and the issue is especially dire when it comes to finding employees with the Commercial Driver’s Licenses needed to operate sanitation trucks, according to the National Waste & Recycling Association.
Short staffing has led to work related injuries among employees, Littrell told the council. Some staff members have transferred to the infrastructure and maintenance department, which Littrell said they view as an easier job for similar pay.
“Rain, shine, snow, whatever, (the sanitation department is) out there working,” he explained after a council work session. Infrastructure staff can come back the next day if they don’t finish the job, but that’s not an option for sanitation workers.
The city began contracting with a staffing firm to provide temporary sanitation labor in Dec. 2025. But over the past 29 weeks, there have been 26 times when staffers haven’t shown up, and 24 when they’ve walked off the job, Littrell said. Most recently, an employee told his supervisor he needed to get something out of his truck. But when the supervisor gave him a ride back to his vehicle, the employee drove away.
In 2022, the city implemented a $2 per hour stipend for employees with Commercial Driver’s Licenses, an incentive that has been extended beyond sanitation. Sanitation workers don’t receive other benefits unavailable to employees city-wide, Littrell said.
During the July 7 meeting, council members discussed possible staffing solutions including a $1,000 sign-on incentive to be distributed over time, a referral incentive, a schedule change that would permit workers to leave without a pay penalty after their tasks were complete, and an increase to the minimum salary, which now stands at $43,742.
The city could also expand its leave buyback program, pay employees more for working outside their typical job duties, adjust working hours, or add a mechanical tipper to the backs of trucks to reduce staffing needs, Littrell said.
The most cost-effective way to collect trash would be from front yards, a change that would enable the city to use trucks with side-arms, city manager Robbie Corder said. But that’s not an option.
“It would create mass protests, but we would be very efficient,” he told the council during the work session. “We’re not recommending that, obviously.”
Mayor Randy Biddle said after Littrell’s presentation that he’d made good recommendations, noting that “we’re getting in the budget season, and we’re probably going to have to tighten the belt a little bit, but it’s an important issue.”
Also during the meeting, the city council:
- Postponed consideration of whether to allow the regulation of short-term rentals through a dedicated permitting process.
- Narrowly approved a resolution appointing Gary Slagel as University Park’s shared representative on the Dallas Area Rapid Transit board of directors. Slagel, who has represented University Park since 2011, retained his position with a 3-2 vote. University Park shares its representative with Addison and Richardson, which had both already approved Slagel’s reappointment, though neither with an unanimous vote.
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