County weighs benefits of leased vehicles

Carlton County coordinator Dennis Genereau gave a pitch for three new leased pickups for the property management department during Monday’s meeting, sparking a discussion by the Carlton County Board of Commissioners about replacing all county-owned cars with leased vehicles.

Carlton County assessor Kyle Holmes is pushing for the change. Holmes oversees the “county fleet” of 16 rental vehicles: seven county at the courthouse in Carlton and nine used by Health & Human Services in Cloquet. These had been owned in the past and were upgraded through purchases from local dealers, but when he took over, Holmes estimated most of the cars were close to 15 years old and he was spending up to $50,000 a year on repairs. Now, those vehicles are leased from Enterprise with $10,000 down for each new vehicle and a rental payment each year. They have a bumper-to-bumper warranty and rotate out every 36 to 39 months, he said.

“For what I was paying for my vehicles, plus maintenance and fuel costs, I was able to swap all 16 vehicles with all new vehicles for about $20,000 a year less than I was paying to maintain the existing fleet,” Holmes said. “We don’t own the vehicles anymore, but it’s saving taxpayer dollars.”

The initial $10,000 per vehicle is the biggest hurdle to face in starting a leasing program for all county vehicles, although it should be a one-time cost as existing equity gets rolled into the next new vehicle, Holmes said. At 60 leased vehicles, that would mean an initial investment of about $600,000 — the change could be made in stages as well.

Holmes told the Pine Knot News he supports the move because the savings from mileage costs and repair bills have been positive on the budget he manages. He said all county vehicles should be leased in a transition period and all supervised by a county fleet supervisor.

“At the present there are about 84 vehicles and that could possibly be reduced to about 75 leased vehicles,” Holmes said. “Leased vehicles are more efficient, avoid costly repairs, and do not have down time for repair by the transportation department. Relatively new vehicles make it not necessary to have extra units to cover when some of the fleet are being repaired.”

Holmes said he is not privy to the exact number in each department but estimated the current count as follows:

• Health & Human Services, nine now leased;

• Courthouse, seven now leased, shared by those based there;

• Sheriff’s Office, about 20, transitioning to leased in 2023;

• Highway department, about 20, mostly trucks;

• Property Management, six vehicles, 20-plus years old:

• Zoning & Environmental Services, two to three vehicles;

• Land department, two trucks, paid for by timber sales.

The sheriff’s office will be moving to Enterprise next year already, Holmes said, under a different contract. Other departments are looking at the switch, but have a less defined vehicle budget. Because the property management department has never had a vehicle budget — it has used “hand-me-down” vehicles.

“The pickups we use for building and grounds maintenance are on their last legs,” Genereau said of the property management vehicles. “This group of vehicles are the cast-offs from all the other departments. I know we are under a budget crunch, but this department covers sites in Cloquet, Carlton, the transportation building and the Barnum garage. I am asking for direction from the board.”

The county board had few questions and no motions of support for the request made at the May 23 meeting.

“Some trucks could be older for the rough loads they haul,” chair Gary Peterson said. “Why put dents and scrapes in a new truck?”

Regarding trucks currently owned by the county, the board approved transferring a newer 4x4 pickup from the Extension office to the zoning department, without Extension charging $20,000-plus for the vehicle. This is the third vehicle that Extension has transferred to other county offices. In 2019, two pickups were given by Extension to the property management department that handles building and grounds maintenance and upkeep.

In other county news:

• Cloquet Riverside Recycling was given an extension on its contract to collect and transport recyclable materials from county-staffed and unstaffed recycling centers. This is the second extension of that contract with a 4.84 percent inflation-adjustment to help cover increasing fuel costs.

• County highway engineer JinYeene Neumann was reappointed for a four-year period after a satisfactory job evaluation.

• The land department held a timber auction on May 12. Some prices were bid up to 230 percent of the base price. The average price per cord for aspen was $48.83 and red pine bolts came in at $69 per cord. Grand total to the county was $494,445.

Blackhoof Township got approval to borrow $50,000 for the Olson Road blacktop project this summer, paying it off in $10,000 installments over the next five years.

• Eagle Township has a grading project on the Kingsley Road that came in at $316,814.60 from Veit & Company, the successful bidder. The engineering estimate was about $40,000 less than that but the Minnesota Department of Transportation has agreed to pay the overrun, according to the county engineer. The project was awarded the money to provide an alternate traffic route when local highway construction projects are underway.