The Capital Planning and Investment Committee returned this week to the question of what to do about the 36-year-old ladder truck the Harvard Fire Department is currently leasing but has the opportunity to buy at a “fire-sale” price. With three members present and two joining on speaker phone, the committee voted unanimously Monday to recommend that the Board of Selectmen authorize buying the ladder (or tower) truck—but not before committee members voiced many concerns both about the truck itself and the process by which its purchase was considered.
The used truck was originally built to stringent New York City specifications. After about 15 years in New York, it was bought by the town of Pembroke, New Hampshire, where it remained in use for 20 years before being taken as a trade-in by Fleetmasters Inc. The Harvard Fire Department agreed to store the engine for Fleetmasters last winter and began leasing it at a dollar a month last March.
Fleetmasters is asking $18,000 for the ladder truck, but necessary repairs and certifications would bring its cost to about $23,000. Fire Chief Rick Sicard told the selectmen in March that a brand-new ladder truck costs between $800,000 and $1 million. So the initial cost for the truck is between 2 and 3 percent of the cost for a new truck of the same type. In addition, Rollstone Bank has offered a grant of $5,000 toward its purchase.
Bargain or white elephant?
It was not the purchase price but the possibility of high maintenance costs that concerned the capital committee. When the committee considered the matter in April, all the members had some worries about the ladder engine’s age. So they deferred their recommendation until the truck could be fully inspected by an outside firm, American Test Center. Those tests have now been done, and the truck passed with flying colors, according to Sicard.
“This truck is incredibly engineered, if not over-engineered,” Sicard said, citing the inspection service’s report. Sicard also talked with the fire chief in Pembroke and obtained the truck’s entire maintenance file, which indicated that it had needed no major repairs in its two decades there.
Nonetheless, several capital committee members remained worried about potential repair costs. So they attached a restriction to their recommendation, saying that the amount spent on repairs and maintenance for the ladder truck was never to exceed $5,000 per year, which Sicard said is the average maintenance cost for other trucks in the fleet.
In a second restriction, committee members also specified that should the ladder truck break down, it was not to be replaced before 2022, the year when the purchase of a ladder truck was originally scheduled for consideration as part of the Fire Department’s long-term capital plan.
A question of process
Although the Board of Selectmen could have approved buying the truck when the opportunity arose in March, Selectmen Ken Swanton and Ron Ricci objected at that time because the purchase had not been vetted by the capital committee. Swanton represents the selectmen on that committee, and Deborah Ricci is its chairwoman.
Some committee members remained concerned about the process. Keith Cheveralls, attending his last meeting as a member of the capital committee, strongly asserted the committee’s jurisdiction over all major expenditures. “This is the second example in this fiscal year of a department working—I won’t say around Capital [Planning and Investment Committee]—but going through the Board of Selectmen. … That’s no way for this committee to operate or for this town to operate.” (The other case Cheveralls referred to was the Department of Public Works’ plan to purchase an additional truck with its own budgeted funds rather than through the capital committee.)
With the capital committee’s recommendation in support, the question of purchasing the ladder engine will now return to the Board of Selectmen for a vote.
