Mike Faher
mfaher@tribdem.com
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Johnstown’s lone road-patching truck was purchased in 1975, and it has been parked all summer due to a bad transmission.
Some of the city’s heavily used police cruisers date to the late 1990s.
And at times, the area around the municipal maintenance garage resembles a small used-car lot.
After years of failing to regularly update their vehicles, city officials now face an aging, high-mileage fleet that poses safety, financial and logistical problems. And a tight budget prohibits any large-scale purchases.
But officials now say they must begin searching for ways to take the worst of the worst cars off the road.
“The idea is to start trying to replace some of the vehicles in next year’s budget,” said Carlos Gunby, city finance director.
Past city leaders have said the previous incarnation of Johnstown’s “commuter tax” had allowed them to set aside money annually for capital purchases, including vehicles.
Police Chief Craig Foust recalls a time when buying cruisers – and getting rid of high-mileage models – was not a rare occurrence.
“We were, in the past, on a rotation,” Foust said. “In a normal year, we would buy two. And in a good year, we would buy three.”
But the city’s initial commuter tax gradually was scaled back and, at the end of 2004, disappeared completely.
The levy was reinstated for 2008. But proceeds have been used entirely to help balance the city’s always-precarious general-fund budget, and Gunby said there is no current capital budget.
So what had been a fairly steady flow of new cars has slowed to a trickle.
“Ninety percent of the fleet has 100,000-plus miles,” Gunby said, specifically citing police cars and public-works trucks as problem areas.
“These are vehicles that, on a daily basis, take a pounding,” he said.
And that leads to escalating repair bills. Gunby said the city already has used most of its vehicle-maintenance budget for this year.
Repairs are done in-house whenever possible.
But staffing shortages and the sheer number of vehicle problems have at times led officials to send cars and trucks to other repair shops.
“We’re starting to replace engines, replace transmissions – high-dollar maintenance,” Gunby said. “And that doesn’t include the oil changes and timing belts and other routine maintenance.”
Foust said cruiser problems have not affected police response. But he said the department’s high-mileage cars are being stretched to their breaking point as officials “try to keep them running as long as we can.”
Truck problems have had an effect on the city’s public works department. Director Darby Sprincz said the 35-year-old patch truck’s broken transmission has forced crews to use smaller trucks with less capacity.
“That’s why we’re behind in our road patching,” Sprincz said.
He added that a well-worn GMC Sonoma driven by department personnel dates to 1993.
“We can’t even find a snowplow to fit that anymore,” Sprincz said.
Grant money could help the financially distressed city buy some vehicles; that’s how the police department acquired its three newest cruisers last year.
“Unfortunately, that money has seemed to dry up,” Gunby said. “But it doesn’t mean we’re not searching for other avenues.”
He is looking into governmental-lease programs that would reduce the city’s up-front expenditures while also allowing for greater vehicle turnover. That would cut down on repair costs.
Though there are no quick fixes, Gunby said he is targeting the oldest 20 percent of the fleet. Ideally, he said, some mixture of leasing and purchasing will begin to alleviate the problem as soon as 2011.
But Gunby warns that city leaders should not expect much sales revenue from many vehicles that will be removed from service.
“They’re well past their useful life,” he said. “And with the issues in some of these vehicles, we cannot go out and sell these things to the public with the idea that they’re safe.”
