New truck purchased for road department

Employees in the Madison Village Road Department can look forward to driving a new Mack truck that will arrive about halfway through 2020.

Madison Village Council approved several measures at a Dec. 16 meeting that put the proposed truck purchase on the road to completion.

Council passed an ordinance involving three different contractors connected to acquiring the truck, and gave its blessings for a downpayment to initiate a lease-to-own agreement for the same vehicle.

The ordinance approved by council calls for paying three companies that will provide separate services needed for the village to acquire a 2020 Mack Granite 42 BR Truck. According to the ordinance:

• Madison Village will buy the truck, with dump-body outfitting, from R.W. Sidley Inc. for about $108,573.

• Jones Equipment has been chosen to add equipment to the truck, such as a dump bed and road-salt spreader, for about $54,553.

• American Financial Network is providing lease financing that will allow the village to eventually own the truck. Lease terms include a $15,000 due at the contract signing, followed by annual payments of $31,947 for five years.

Obtaining the truck through a lease-to-own plan spanning five years made better financial sense, at this time, as opposed to buying the truck outright with a single payment, village Administrator Dwayne Bailey explained.

“Interest rates are very good now,” Bailey said. “For a small community to be able to take $150,000 out of an annual budget would be extremely

difficult to do. Through the lease, it breaks it down into a manageable lease payment, and we budget that lease payment every year, for a fiveyear cycle.”

The $15,000 downpayment, which was funded through a separate purchase order, will help the village to equip the truck and put it into service sooner.

“That gives us about a May delivery instead of possibly getting pushed out until plowing season next year, so we can move that up in the timeline without upsetting the apple cart,” Bailey said at the Dec. 2 council meeting.

In addition, the village could shorten the lease term for the truck by starting it this month rather than after Jan. 1.

The $15,000 downpayment to activate the lease will come from appropriated but unused money in Madison’s 2019 maintenance and repair fund, village Fiscal Officer Kristie Crockett said during the same meeting

on Dec. 2.

Crockett explained that $10,000 originally had been earmarked for crack sealing in 2019. That work didn’t get done because of scheduling issues involving a company that traditionally performs crack sealing for Madison.

In addition, $5,000 had been put into the maintenance and repair fund to buy a trailer for hauling a roller that the village shares with Madison Township.

“But the township ended up getting an attachment for the roller, so we didn’t need to purchase our own trailer to haul the roller,” Crockett said.

While Village Council and administrators discussed the truck purchase on Dec. 2, no action was taken immediately, since the vehicle acquisition hinged on passage of the 2020 budget. Council approved the budget on Dec. 16, and then acted on the two measures dealing with the Mack truck.