City to save $1.3 million with vehicles

The City Council acted on the matter during its regular meeting Tuesday night.

“We are moving to a fleet style management system that will replace a lot of the older vehicles that we have in our fleet that essentially have high maintenance costs and high fuel costs, and we will rotate these in and out over the course of the next few years,” City Council Chairman Doug Harvey said.

Mike Duffy, a consultant with Enterprise Fleet Management Inc., said 62 percent of the city’s vehicles are eight-years old or have more than 100,000 miles traveled on them.

“Currently the city is operating a vehicle for 13 years before they’re selling it,” Duffy said. “We are going to shorten that cycle to be operated between one and four year window for all those vehicles that are safe under warranty with lower maintenance cost and better fuel economy and still have some value for when they’re sold.”

Stacey Rowell, the city’s director of administration, explained the upgrades could significantly reduce maintenance costs and lower that expenditure item in the city’s budget.

“It provides for a smoother budget number for us,” Rowell said.

According to Rowell, the agreement with Fleet Management excludes upgrading the city’s fire and police vehicles. “Those will be looked at separately,” Rowell said.

According to city documents, 59 city vehicles do not meet current anti-brake lock standards.

“Basically, we identified about 201 vehicles in our fleet (for replacement),” Rowell said. “Basically, we will rotate out about 50 a year.”