Deltona’s vehicle sticker shock

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Deltona’s vehicle sticker shock
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Looking for bargains in the new-vehicle market, cost-conscious Deltona city commissioners have delayed buying some trucks for the municipal workforce. 

The sticker shock was evident, as commissioners were asked to approve the purchases.

“We’re spending a lot of money on vehicles we don’t need,” Vice Mayor Jody Lee Storozuk said Feb. 19, as the commission considered requests to purchase a half-dozen new trucks. “Every city in the state is going for fuel efficiency. We don’t need to be last.”

Storozuk took aim at the proposal to buy six Ford F-250s for the Parks and Recreation Department. The city could purchase the vehicles by “piggybacking” on a vehicle-purchase contract made by the Florida Sheriffs Association with Duval Ford, a Jacksonville dealer. 

Three of the new trucks would have a crew cab, and each would cost $72,143.10, for a combined price of $216,429.30. The other three Fords would have a regular cab and would cost $67,059.52, with a combined price of $201,178.56. The total price for all six trucks would be $417,607.86.

Background information on the agenda item noted the new vehicles would replace six older trucks now used by the department. Four of the vehicles eyed for replacement have logged more than 100,000 miles, and they are 10 years old or older. The other two trucks have been driven fewer than 90,000 miles, according to the memorandum, but they are aging. One of them is 19 years old, and the other is 15 years old.

“The City has a policy in place that all vehicles that have reached either 10 years of service or 100,000 miles are eligible for replacement,” the memo notes.

Still, Storozuk said he had found lower prices at a dealership in Sanford. Storozuk said he also wonders if the city could save more money by buying lighter and less expensive trucks for its parks personnel.

Commissioner Dana McCool agreed the city may achieve some savings by purchasing less costly models.

“We need to tackle it from a policy standpoint,” she said.

The City Commission voted unanimously, 6-0, to table the item until its March 25 meeting. 

Another proposed purchase of vehicles was deferred, also. The Code Compliance Department had asked for three new Chevrolet Silverado heavy-duty, double-cab trucks for animal-control officers, as well as code-enforcement officers. Each of the new vehicles has a price tag of $80,517.26, for a combined total of $241,551.79.

“They don’t need them just to go around the city to pick up garage-sale signs,” Storozuk said.

The 2024 Silverados are supposed to replace three aging and high-mileage Ford F-250s. The deal would include a “box,” or animal-holding unit, for each of the new Silverado trucks. The animals picked up would then be taken to Halifax Humane Society.

In this instance, Deltona would piggyback on a contract made by the Bradford County Sheriff’s Office and Duval Chevrolet.

At the request of the city’s staff, the request was pulled, or withdrawn, because of a lack of more information about the intended purchase. The item may be submitted to the City Commission at a later date.

One purchase the commission did vote to authorize was a truck that is for a new position in the Fire Department. The latest contract between the city and the firefighters union calls for the hiring of an emergency-medical-services captain and a vehicle to haul training supplies and equipment. The ideal transport unit, the agenda noted, “will be a Ford 150 style vehicle equipped as an emergency vehicle; which includes emergency lights, siren, radio and department stripping [sic].” 

“Is there any way we can get a more fuel-efficient truck?” Storozuk asked. “All these add up.”

The estimated cost of adding the new EMS captain is about $98,000, which includes the annual salary and benefits, as well as $5,000 for office furniture. The cost of the vehicle will be about $70,000.

The vote to purchase the truck for the EMS captain was 4-2. Storozuk and Mayor Santiago Avila Jr. dissented, but Commissioners McCool, Maritza Avila-Vazquez, Stephen Colwell and Troy Shimkus formed the majority.

The city has a total fleet of “156 vehicles in service,” Public Works Director Phyllis Wallace wrote in an email response to a query by The Beacon. Deltona Water has the largest number of vehicles, 60, of any department.

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Born in Virginia, Al spent his youth in Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia, and first moved to DeLand in 1969. He graduated from Stetson University in 1971, and returned to West Volusia in 1985. Al began working for The Beacon as a stringer in 1999, contributing articles on county and municipal government and, when he left his job as the one-man news department at Radio Station WXVQ, began working at The Beacon full time.

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