LIVERMORE FALLS – Selectmen voted Monday to allow the fire chief to contract with E-One firetruck manufacturers to build a new tanker-pumper for the Fire Department.

The department received a $198,000 Fire Act Grant, including the town’s matching share of $9,900, which voters approved last month to buy the truck.

Three manufacturers had looked at the truck package and one withdrew because it would not be able to have the truck ready by Sept. 2, Fire Chief Ken Jones told selectmen.

E-One was the only company to respond with a bid and specifications by the Jan. 5 deadline, with Pierce Manufacturing Inc. submitting two weeks later, Jones said.

The Pierce bid of $183,000 had hardly any of the options the department asked for, and its $194,000 quote had some options but not the pump size or some valves that the department required.

E-One’s bid was $198,000 with more of the options the department wanted.

Initially, the company was going to offer a wet side tanker, which has an open top above the compartments, but the manufacturer is willing to fully aluminize the sides for a closed dry-side tanker for an additional $5,000, Jones said.

When he submitted the grant last year, Jones said he had requested $225,000 but received $198,000. The larger amount would have covered everything the department felt it needed, he said.

The chief asked selectmen to let him pursue the E-One truck for a couple of reasons. One is that the company opened a new service center in Brunswick, which would be closer than Foxborough, Mass., where Pierce’s service center is located, if the truck needs maintenance. The other is that E-One makes a better truck for the type the department is looking at, Jones said.

In order to get some of the choice add-ons the department wants, he said, it would cost $17,000.

Jones said he had about $6,000 in his budget for equipment that he could use for the truck, and the department gets a 3 percent discount on the amount of its down payment.

Twenty-five percent of the Fire Act Grant can be received up front for the down payment, and that added to the $9,900 voters approved and any money that can be used from the department’s budget would be subject to the 3 percent discount, he said.

The remainder of the grant money would be paid on completion of the truck.

Jones said he is waiting for an answer to see if the grant would be jeopardized, if the money in the department’s equipment budget is used toward the new truck this year and equipment money proposed to be budgeted for next year, also to get the add-on equipment. One of the grant requirements is to not cut the department’s budget for three years.

The equipment the department wants to buy is not part of the truck, Assistant Chief Jim Leclerc said, and could be used for other trucks.

The truck will have a 1,250-gallon-per-minute pump and three ladders on it – extension, folding and roof – so the department can get credit for a small attack apparatus, Jones said.

Leclerc said the department is trying to set the truck up to last 30 years.

Selectmen voted to allow Jones to put money from this year’s budget toward the truck as long as it doesn’t jeopardize the grant and to factor in the remainder of the money needed into next year’s budget.