Harlan Kirgan
If you’ve noticed city workers driving shiny white trucks it is because many of the 18 new pickup trucks the city has leased are on the road replacing vehicles that were more than 20 years old.
“Most of them were on the verge of the wheels falling off,” Eunice Mayor Scott Fontenot said of the aging fleet of city pickup trucks in the recreation, gas, street and wastewater departments.
In February the city received the trucks leased through Enterprise and purchased at John R. Young and Perry Pitre dealerships in Eunice, he said.
The lease is costing $110,000 a year and upgrades about 80% of the city’s pickup trucks with 2020 and 2019 models, he said.
The city had reached the point where it needed to buy at least four new pickup trucks. Stripped-down models purchased through the state contract were going to cost $25,000 to $30,000 for a vehicle equipped with a V8 motor, he said.
The city is using its capital outlay fund to pay for the lease instead of general fund money, he said.
The bonus to the plan is Enterprise obtained the trucks from the local dealerships, he said.
“I wanted to stay local,” he said. “We want to be an example.”
The leased vehicles save the city maintenance costs such as oil changes and other routine maintenance, but they are covered by the factory warranties.
There are not limits on mileage and Fontenot said the vehicles are more fuel-efficient than the old trucks.
The pickups are identified by decals and a phone number on the tailgate that the public can call if they question how a vehicle is being driven or where it is being driven.
Fontenot, who began installing GPS devices on city vehicles after he took office, said the new trucks are also to have GPS on them.
The city’s aging pickups cost the city at least $70,000 last year in maintenance costs, he said.
The new vehicles will probably cost the city about $25,000 a year, he said.
In five years, when the lease expires, the city will be able to tap equity it has in the vehicles to start replacing them, he said. Instead of spending $110,000, he expects the city will update its fleet for about $80,000 next time.
Fontenot said he was a approached about the leasing deal about five years ago after becoming mayor.
Along with the lease deal, Fontenot said the city’s move to separate its library from the Opelousas library and obtaining a grant to install LED street and park lighting are intended to save the city money.
“We made some moves particularly the last year and half financially that if we wouldn’t have had this virus come we were going to be really good shape,” he said.
Even with the revenue losses from shutdown to slow the spread of COVID-19, the savings are going to help the city recover.