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After Wednesday’s Hancock City Council meeting, the group held a budget workshop. City Manager Mary Babcock said one of the major expenses that will occur over the next five years is replacing the aging vehicle fleet. She is proposing buying two new trucks in the coming months.
Staff are still investigating whether leasing or buying makes the most sense. In the past, the city has mostly bought. It has one truck at the moment that is less than five years old. Others are nearly 20 years old and one even had a transmission replaced recently, something that doesn’t happen for around 200,000 miles. A front loader has also been recommended.
The lease on the road grader ends in the fall. Babcock says she has already worked to exercise the buy out option for $120,000, a move that was praised by Mayor Paul LaBine.
Budget workshops will continue through the spring in the runup to the end of the city’s fiscal year.
