Council OKs lease plan for new $1 million-plus fire ladder truck

The Hutchinson City Council agreed to a recommendation from Fire Chief Steve Beer to use a new “turn-in lease” program to replace the department’s aging aerial platform truck, potentially saving the city nearly $330,000 over the next decade.

The council this week also approved city staff negotiating with a Wichita engineering firm to design the Washington Street Bicycle Boulevard project, OK’d an agreement with BG Consultants for construction oversite on a sewer line project, and authorized contract for a new street pavement analysis contract at its meeting Tuesday.

Under the fire apparatus replacement plan, the city would lease a new truck for 10 years and then either purchase it with a balloon payment at the end of the lease period or start a lease on a new truck.

The 20-year-old, 100-foot aerial platform apparatus runs on all structure fires in Hutchinson, Beer said, averaging about 10,000 miles a year of all in-town driving.

The department has spent about $100,000 on maintenance on the truck since its warranty expired, and it needs another $100,000 to $150,000 of work for a new basket and waterway seals if the city plans to continue using it, but it would only have a resale value of about $30,000.

“Our last three fires have been three-story buildings, with the fires on the third floor,” Beer said. “This is a critical piece of equipment for what we do.”

The city has another 75-foot ladder truck, but it does not have an aerial platform.

The massive trucks take 10 months to build and cost more than $1 million each.

The fire department budget includes $155,000 per year to buy a replacement truck, but through his plan, Beer estimates he can bring payments down to about $122,000 a year.

The plan requires the city to first join a multi-state regional municipal buying cooperative, specifically the Houston-Galveston Area Council (HGAC) Cooperative Purchasing program. Purchasing equipment through the cooperative, which is free to join, Beer estimated would reduce the truck’s cost by about $24,000.

The turn-in lease plan would then set annual lease payments that are lower than a traditional lease because of the balloon payment at the end. Then, after 10 years, the city can either decide to make that payment, estimated at $300,000, to complete the purchase of the truck, or turn it back into the company and start another lease on a new truck.

By keeping the truck under lease, the manufacturer’s warranty would cover most if any repair costs. When a truck reaches 10 to 15 years, Beers said, is when most repair issues beyond routine maintenance start to surface.

“We’ve never taken advantage of those discounts,” Beer said of the program. “It's real money.”

Waiting to replace the truck, Beer said, would add at 3 to 4 percent a year to the cost.

The council as a whole praised Beer for taking a different approach.

“I like the idea of a lease agreement, but when it comes to safety equipment, we want to be cutting edge, we want to be at the forefront,” Councilman Dave Inskeep noted.

Using a lease turn in would better enable that, Beer said, noting the current ladder truck doesn’t even have airbags.

Inskeep inquired whether the purchase of the new truck could help lower insurance ratings in the city.

Beer said he expects, in combination with other changes he plans to make before Insurance Services Office (ISO) inspectors come to town next spring that he’ll be able to bring the city’s ISO rating down from 3 to 2, saving residents and businesses significantly on insurance costs.

Bicycle boulevard design:

The City earlier this year was awarded a state and federal $453,643 Transportation Alternatives Grant to build a “Bicycle Boulevard” on Washington Street, between 17th to 23rd avenues. Under provisions of the Grant, the city was required to seek qualifications from three consulting design firms before selecting one to design the project.

The city received proposals from MKEC of Wichita, Wilson & Company of Salina and WSP of Wichita. A selection committee unanimously recommended WSP, so Colle sought permission from the council to negotiate with WSP for the project.

Colle said WSP is one of the world’s largest transportation engineering firms and he was surprised it submitted a proposal.

“Should the negotiations be successful, the next step is to bring a recommendation of award to the Council,” Colle advised. That will likely be at the council’s next meeting, on Dec. 20.

He estimated the design cost would be $70,000 to $80,000 on the project. That cost is above the city’s 20 percent match for construction, of $90,728, since federal money can’t be used for “fee-based” services including design, but that would still be within the original estimated project cost.

The design will occur in 2018, Colle said, with construction in 2019. 

Sewer contract:

The City signed a contract with BG Consultants in November 2015 for design services for a sanitary sewer collection improvement project. Construction on the project started on Nov. 28. The original contract did not include any inspection/construction site oversite, but city engineering staff is requesting the company now provide some of those services.

The work would be limited, and billed on an hourly basis, Director of Engineering Bruce Colle advised the council. The council approved up to $20,040 for the services, at a rate of $83.50 per hour.

Even with the addition, the overall project costs will be below what the city budgeted, Colle said.

Pavement management:

The engineering department also submitted to the council an $89,000 contract with an Arizona company to assess the condition of the city’s paved streets and develop an updated maintenance schedule.

The city did a similar assessment in 2012, which was used to designate which streets received overlays or chip seals.

The new study, besides helping in creation of a future pavement plan, will help the city assess how well projects since 2012 have held up, Colle said.

The company, Infrastructure Management Systems (IMS), will bring a heavily equipped van to town which will drive 261-lane miles in the city.

“It’s almost Star Wars,” Colle said of the van. “They have ground penetrating equipment, high-quality video, lasers and other technology to measure the roughness, rutting, rideability, cracking and any other stresses on the pavement and aggregate base.”

“It’s good for the public to know street maintenance is not arbitrary, that it’s data-driven,” said Councilwoman Jade Piros de Carvalho. “We get a lot of comments when a street is redone, and others have not. This is a critical piece of data collection that we need to make objective decisions.”

Not every street will be assessed during the study, Colle said, just arterial and collector streets.