October 18, 2024
By: Dwayne Page
Replacing a fire truck!
During Tuesday night’s meeting, the county budget committee voted 5-0 to recommend to the full county commission that $425,000 be allocated from the capital projects fund to purchase a demo fire truck for the fire department in order that one of the older trucks in the fleet can be used to replace a reserve truck, which has been out of service for two years.
County Fire Chief Donny Green had made this request of the budget committee earlier in the year and plans at that time were to fund a new fire truck from capital projects. But upon the advice of the county’s fiscal agent Steve Bates in May, the budget committee decided instead to use proceeds for this purchase from the proposed bond for the judicial center/jail project.
“You might want to consider taking some of these expenditures out of capital projects and adding them within the bond resolution in the event you don’t need all the money you are going to borrow for this judicial center,” said Bates. “I think we will earn enough interest income and to the extent you have some monies left over you might be able to pick up these costs without taking this (capital projects fund) into cash. You would leave the project description in the bond resolution broad enough to capture anything you would have had to deplete your cash for just as a back-up. If there should not be enough money left over, we could always come back and amend the budget and put it back into capital projects. The bond resolution project description can be for construction of the judicial center, county buildings, land acquisition, and emergency response vehicles,” said Bates.
However, due to uncertainties now about the bond issue because of the referendum and the need to expedite the purchase, the budget committee Tuesday night decided to ask the county commission for passage of a budget amendment in the amount of $425,000 for the fire truck from capital projects.
For several years, Chief Green has presented the county budget committee with a fleet replacement cycle plan in his budget presentations.
“The department has had a history of purchasing retired vehicles from other departments, but this has only been a temporary fix,” said Chief Green. “Without occasionally purchasing new apparatuses, the department could be facing having to replace several pieces of apparatuses in the aged fleet at once. Five of our 12 front line fire engines are over 20 years old and the reserve engine that is out of service is 37 years old. The department’s only vehicle rescue truck is 30 years old,” he said.
Green said the concern with the reserve truck is one example of why a replacement schedule is needed.
“Our reserve engine that we have right now has been out of service for two years,” explained Chief Green.
“It’s a 1987 truck that we got from Brentwood when Mike Foster was County Mayor and the manufacturer that built this truck has been out of business for 18 years. We cannot find parts for it now. When we had our last fleet apparatus check done that we do annually through a third-party company, they failed the truck and told us to not put it back on the road, so we don’t have a reserve truck,” said Chief Green.
“ISO (Insurance Services Office) gives us points in our insurance rating for having a reserve apparatus in our fleet, so we need to have a reserve truck. Operational wise, if I have any one of our 12 stations fire trucks go out of service without a reserve truck, I don’t have a spare to slide in and take care of that which happens frequently. Last year we had an engine go down and we were without it for about eight months and that station was without coverage. Its important to have a reserve truck especially for a fleet our size with 12 stations that covers 305 square miles. This demo fire truck will let us take one of our oldest apparatuses out of service, put it into reserve status, and get rid of the old reserve truck that is not working,” added Chief Green.
Even obtaining a demo truck could take time. “We can’t buy any kind of new truck for $425,000 and we’re going to be pressed even on availability of finding a demo truck because the build time is 18 months to 24 months which has driven the used market crazy because people are buying the best used truck that can find rather than wait on something new,” said Green.