Marion County’s three new garbage trucks should arrive in October.
After accepting an electronic bid of $134,000 apiece for the three trucks, the Marion County Board of Supervisors met last week with Jay Callaway, director of municipal and government accounts for Truckworx, who was awarded the bid.
Callaway thanked the board and said he looked forward to working with Marion County on the venture.
“Kenworth offered the best lead time for you now,” he said. “For the reverse auction, the lead time reflected Sept. 4. The day of the purchase order, the lead time reflected Sept. 24, and that is going to put us a little bit behind. I wanted to be upfront with that because I know how vital the garbage truck operations are to the county. As far as that goes, by the time they are equipped, it will be October.”
The later delivery came with a plus for the county, however, a discount.
“I’m personally giving you guys a $1,000 discount on the maintenance contract,” he said. “The lead time is outside of my control, but I understand and I want to show you guys what I can do that is inside of my control. That’s what brought me here to today, to basically say thank you and tell you about this. I hope you guys are OK with this.”
Callaway went over the maintenance contracts with the board, a four-year contract for each truck.
“This is based off of the Kenworth manual, based on the service recommendations you will need to operate the vehicles,” Callaway said.
A minimum of two oil changes per year is recommended on the trucks, with others being dependent on mileage.
“Once we do the two oil changes we will do filters and all of the type of stuff,” Callaway said.
“We really appreciate the adjustment,” Board Vice President Terry Broome said.
Callaway said the county could pay the contracts when it needed to.
“We can accept them quarterly, monthly, however you want to,” Callaway said. “We’re flexible. Unfortunately now, guys, lead time in the truck manaufacutirng industry are a problem right now. A lot of people aren’t getting tucks until next year. It’s a big struggle going on. I do know that we are working hard to keep the costs down.”
The city and county both began contracting with Red River Waste Solutions in 2013 because the municipalities' aging equipment was driving up costs, but there have been complaints about spotty service and price increases. In 2016, Red River was replaced by Waste Pro. City and county officials raised fees last year to $15 per house per month to accommodate rising expenses.
New state regulations took effect on Jan. 1 for the way counties, municipalities and school districts make major purchases, such as garbage trucks. An online reverse auction is now required.
Broome said the county is looking forward to receiving the new trucks and putting them in service.
“We are excited to be taking over this service,” he said. “We have been looking at this for quite some time.”
