Jamie Munks
The State Journal-Register
A proposal to pursue financing for roughly $3 million worth of city vehicles and equipment is hanging in the balance after no Springfield aldermen raised the issue at a meeting earlier this week. Some aldermen favor holding off on a multimillion dollar purchase, while some of the city’s department heads call the ordinance critical because it will replace aging equipment used for tasks such as responding to emergencies and clearing snow from city streets.
Aldermen at a committee of the whole meeting last month discussed a plan to spend $3.15 million to purchase 40 police patrol vehicles, a fire engine and a number of pieces of equipment for the public works department, but it wasn’t moved to the agenda for the following week’s city council meeting, where it would have come up for a vote.
The equipment would be purchased using a loan, and the first payment wouldn’t be due until about a year from now. McCarty called the equipment that would be replaced “very old and worn out.”
The new police patrol vehicles would be equipped with cameras and would be more fuel-efficient. In some cases, they’d be replacing vehicles that have logged upwards of 200,000 miles on the road. Spreaders for public works would make salting the roads more effective than the current method of using dump beds, McCarty said.
But the ordinance was being considered on the same night aldermen heard a presentation about City Water, Light and Power’s financial situation, during which it was revealed that the city-owned utility is facing an $8 million shortfall. That money must be made up by the end of February, or CWLP could be facing its second technical default in four years.
At that meeting Sept. 9, Ward 7 Ald. Joe McMenamin suggested delaying the purchase until the city’s next fiscal year, which begins in March. McMenamin said this week that he hadn’t spoken to other aldermen about the ordinance, but he said he was “very aware” no one made a motion to bring it out of committee.
“By taking no action on the proposed $918,000 supplemental appropriation, the council forces the administration to live with the originally budgeted $2 million for new vehicles and equipment,” McMenamin said. “The administration needs to prioritize its spending between the needs of police, fire and public works and allocate the originally budgeted $2 million accordingly.”
According to a city vehicle summary McMenamin requested several weeks ago, 50 vehicles have been purchased for the Springfield Police Department since 2009 with a combination of funding sources, including a capital equipment fund, grants, and revenue related to drug and driving under the influence funds.
The two biggest-ticket items on the proposed equipment list are the 40 police cars for a total of nearly $1.8 million and a $638,000 fire engine. The remaining $752,000 is for 18 pieces of equipment for public works, including a paving machine, a street sweeper and a dump truck with a snow plow.
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Ward 1 Ald. Frank Edwards said he wants to wait and see what happens with CWLP’s finances before moving forward with purchasing more vehicles and public works equipment, especially since one of the options for remedying the utility’s financial situation is refunding to electric fund the payment in lieu of taxes the utility makes to the city’s corporate fund annually.
The loan carries a 1.39 percent interest rate, which McCarty called “very advantageous,” adding that he’s not sure the city would get the same rate next year.
Joe McMenamin for Ward 7 