Jamie Munks
The State Journal-Register
Monday’s ribbon-cutting at the new Springfield consolidated vehicle maintenance garage was more than 2 1/2 years in the making. After several delays, city workers and equipment from four separate garages moved into the new facility in phases starting in October and ending Nov. 9. City officials maintain that savings from the consolidation could surpass initial projections of as much as $5 million over a five-year period.
While considering the $400,000 investment to purchase the new garage, at Capitol Avenue and Martin Luther King Drive, “in reality, the savings will exceed that estimate,” Mayor Mike Houston said at Monday’s ribbon-cutting.
The move toward a consolidated garage essentially started in early 2012, when a Maximus Consulting Services report recommended consolidation of the fire, police, public works and City Water, Light and Power garages to save money and increase efficiency. The new set-up also creates better working conditions for employees and more training opportunities, Houston said.
Another 2012 study, by CST Fleet Services, concluded that the city could save about $1.3 million annually after the first year of consolidation by cutting the number of vehicles in the fleet, the number of administrators and regulating fuel use more closely.
There were a number of steps that went into the consolidation project, including the building purchase, coordination with multiple unions and wrangling earlier this year over a $3.75 million contract with NAPA Auto Parts to operate the parts room.
The city council voted 7-2 on April 15 to contract with NAPA Auto Parts to set up and run the parts room in the new garage, but the issue ultimately dragged on for weeks, as some aldermen took issue with the city not using the competitive bidding process to procure the contract. Instead, the city went through the National Joint Powers Alliance, a division of the state of Minnesota, to procure the contract under the assumption that the state of Illinois has an inter-governmental purchasing agreement with the NJPA.
In early June, after the council refused to act, Houston opted to implement the contract as it was approved in April.
“The dispute over the no-bid NAPA contract is just a small slice of everything that had to be worked out,” said Ward 7 Ald. Joe McMenamin, who attended Monday’s event. McMenamin, who was among the aldermen pushing for the contract to be competitively bid, said he hopes that will happen when the current three-year contract with NAPA expires, noting there could be some savings if it’s bid out.
At the beginning of the garage-consolidation process, there were 47 city positions involved with fleet maintenance, and as of Monday, there were 33. There were no layoffs; rather, those whose positions were eliminated found other work within the city or elsewhere.
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Joe McMenamin for Ward 7 