Fleet purchase plan could end delays in curbside debris pickup

Sep. 25—Decatur's Environmental Services Department remains behind in large-item debris and limb pickup, but Director Daniel Boutwell says crews are catching up and he's hoping a vehicle replacement plan in the new budget will solve the problem.

The new replacement plan for Environmental Services is part of a $3 million capital plan in the fiscal 2023 budget approved last week by the Decatur City Council.

While curbside debris pickup is supposed to take place at every home in the city once every two weeks, Boutwell said last week that pickup is currently taking place about every two and a half weeks. He said his department no longer uses a private contractor to help catch up on the backlog.

"I can't say we haven't missed some folks but, if we can keep our trucks running and keep our employees working, things will continue to get much better," Boutwell said. "We are in better shape than we were at the start of the spring."

On July 1, Environmental Services was five weeks behind so the city hired PowerGrid for $285 an hour to work Fridays and Saturdays to help the Sanitation and Street departments' employees.

Boutwell planned to use PowerGrid until the end of September, but said he stopped using the contractor after only four weekends. He said this cost about $40,000, which included truck rental, fuel and employees.

"It was getting just too expensive," Boutwell said.

Decatur Chief Financial Officer Kyle Demeester created a replacement plan for garbage and loader trucks that's similar to the plans for Police and Fire departments that the city has had in place for several years.

Boutwell said he hopes the replacement plan will avoid a repetition of the backlogs experienced over the summer, when vehicle breakdowns contributed to delays in debris pickup. The city paid contractors over $100,000 to repair the trucks.

Demeester said the plan will cost just over a $1 million annually for the expected three-year life cycle of the trucks. His breakdown for City Council showed the plan will cost $1.34 million in the first year, $1.2 million in fiscal 2024 and $1 million in fiscal 2025.

"The concept here is to be proactive," Demeester said. "And we want to avoid the perfect storm where the entire fleet goes out in one day and we have to replace the whole lot in one year."

Boutwell said the plan mainly focuses on replacement of the department's 10 garbage trucks and 11 loader trucks, one of which he said last week was inoperable.

However, Demeester said the city's residential growth "means more work for" Environmental Services. He estimated that, with 1,000 new homes, the department would need a total of 12 garbage trucks and 15 loader trucks to cover the city.

Boutwell said the nation's supply chain issues are slowing down deliveries of the trucks. The department has ordered five new trucks but delivery lead times are long. Two loader trucks are scheduled for delivery in November, another in January and a garbage truck won't come until at least June, Boutwell said.

Demeester said the useful life span for the garbage and loader trucks is three years because after that "essentially these trucks are not worth a lot and they have high repair costs."

He said the three-year life span means the city should replace four garbage trucks and five loader trucks per year.

Demeester expects the sale of the used vehicles will offset some of the cost.

"The used market has been hot so we could make a little on some of our older trucks," Demeester said. "But we have a loader truck from 1995, and it's still running. From what we looked at we could get $14,000 from this truck."

Demeester said using new trucks could also save money now spent on contracting out repairs, and might even allow the city to refrain from replacing some garage employees who retire or resign.

The approved capital plan for fiscal 2023 features 15 items, highlighted by the new garbage and loader trucks, $500,000 for fleet upgrades in Parks and Recreation, Solid Waste and Decatur Youth Services, and a $105,000 dump truck for the Street Department.

The Police Department's firearms range will get $330,000 in upgrades. The council also approved the $393,162 purchase of CityView computer software.

Demeester said the CityView software will allow the Building, Planning and Revenue departments to do more online work with contractors and accept online payments.

City Director of Development Dane Shaw said the new software will also improve communication between departments about projects.

Other capital expenditures include Agility Planner software for Information Technology, $9,348; $15,000 for a map plotter for the Planning and Engineering departments; $10,000 for a bridge over a creek at the Julian Harris Elementary park; $10,000 for Morgan County-Decatur Farmers Market storage; $30,000 for bike path striping; $90,000 for extrication equipment and $80,000 for eight imagers for Decatur Fire & Rescue; and $5,000 for an ice maker for the Street Department.

— bayne.hughes@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2432. Twitter @DD_BayneHughes.