The Marion Board of Aldermen are reviewing garbage service bids from three companies to select a provider for the town beginning next year.

In a meeting Tuesday, the board opened bids from Waste Management, Waste Pro and Arrow Disposal Service Inc. to provide garbage collection service to the Town of Marion.

The costs, which were quoted as a price per can per month were $15.95 for Waste Management, $15.35 for ADSI and $13.29 for Waste Pro.Marion garbage is currently collected by Waste Management.

In October, the board voted to authorize an emergency contract extension with the solid waste company through February. Mayor Larry Gill said the extension would give the town time to work through the bid process and make a decision.

Garbage contracts, which are a significant expense for the town, had expired under the previous administration, which had been extending the Waste Management contract with emergency extensions.

The board of aldermen decided to move forward with the bidding process to make sure the town was following proper procedure and residents were getting a competitive price for the service.

Town attorney Dustin Markham said the bids will be compiled into a list, which will be available at Town Hall for the public to request.

Gill said his administration would work through the bid specifications from each of the three companies and put the details into a spreadsheet for aldermen review.

He said it would be important to look at the details of each proposal to make sure the company was offering the services residents expected.

Alderwoman Stacy Blalock said the board would need to look beyond the initial price to make sure the services reflected in the bids were the same before making a decision.

“We need to compare apples to apples,” she said.

Gill said the board will have time to review the bids and discuss any issues at it’s Jan. 3 work session. The bids will need to be approved in the board’s Jan. 4 meeting, he said.

“We will have to make a decision in the first meeting in January,” he said.

In other business, the board of aldermen approved changing the time of it’s second monthly meeting from 8:15 a.m. to 8 a.m. The board meets at 6 p.m. on the first Tuesday of the month and in the morning on the third Tuesday of the month.

Changing the meeting time was done to give aldermen with full-time jobs more time to discuss business and make decisions without taking too much time out of the work day. The time change will go into effect beginning with the Jan. 18 meeting.