Celina will try leasing police vehicles to try and improve its fleet.
Assistant Police Chief Spencer Booher said the department spent $126,000 over the last five years maintaining vehicles. Booher said the department looks for ways to save, using alternative methods of transport and repairing vehicles.
“We’re fighting an uphill battle of vehicle maintenance of every week to every other week that we’re having to repair these vehicles,” Booher said. “I mean that’s something that’s not really understood. And its not looked at, that these vehicles are driven 24/7, 365 days a year, 24 hours a day in tough road conditions, tough weather conditions, and they’ve just worn out over time. The oldest we’ve got is a 2014.”
Booher said the lease agreement will charge the city $58,100 annually. Booher said the sale of its old cars will pay for the first payment of the lease agreement.
“We work for the tax payers of Celina,” Booher said. “Our end goal is to be able to save the tax payers money and provide them with a quality service.”
Booher said the department has five total vehicles. Booher said the department will keep two vehicles, one for the K-9.
Booher said the current police vehicles can be hazardous and costly. Booher said his car overheated on his way home from work, costing $554. Police Chief Terry Scott said his brakes failed when driving through a local four way intersection.
“We’ve saved dramatics, I mean dramatically a lot of money the past six months by having Austin and his guys work on our vehicles,” Booher said. “I mean it’s two weeks ago we had three vehicles down at one time. We had to borrow a car from the county just to have enough units on the road.”
Booher said the vehicles will come outfitted with new equipment, like light sirens, brush guards, prisoner partitions and dual locks. Booher said vehicle computer systems are new, but not included.
Booher said the city would be responsible for paying vehicle insurance and basic car maintenance, like tires and tire rotations, oil changes and breaks.
At the end of the lease the city can swap the vehicle out or buy the vehicle at a small percentage of the lease.
