JAY – Sewer Department Superintendent Mark Holt has modified a 2004 Ford Escape into a work vehicle to save the town money on gas.

Initially, the plan was to buy a full-size truck with a plow for $40,000. Instead, the Escape, which had less than 30,000 miles on it when it was bought, cost $11,900 and a trailer cost $1,600, and a light bar for the roof, two-way radio, decals, trailer hitch and wiring brought the total to about $14,000, Holt said.

Holt went with owners of Jay Motor Sales, Bob and Danny DiPompo, to a vehicle auction in Connecticut. They were initially bidding on a 2007 but it got too pricey, Holt said.

The SUV replaces a 1995 truck -ton truck that had 145,000 miles on it. It was sold to the Jay School Department for $2,300. The department still has a GMC 1997 truck with a utility bed that has 115,000 miles on it, to do the plowing.

The new vehicle gets on average 18 to 23 miles per gallon compared to the truck that got an average of about 8 miles per gallon, Holt said.

The back seat has been removed from the SUV to open the rear to hold a box containing tools, safety vests and cones.

He still finds himself at the gas station filling up just as much, Holt said, but the difference is he’s only putting in 10 to 12 gallons of gas compared to 28 to 30 gallons.

Holt estimates that the town will save at least $600 a year on fuel.

Selectman Tom Goding asked Holt at a recent selectmen’s meeting why he took the town’s SUV home with him.

A lot of times, Holt said, he gets called for an emergency at home and he lives within a mile of the largest population base of the sewer department. The majority of the time it is a private service problem but he still needs to investigate.

He is on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and when he responds from home he already has the equipment with him that he may need, Holt said. When he got the job in 1990, he said, he would accept being on call 24/7 but needed a vehicle that he would be able take home.

In order to operate efficiently, Holt said, he makes sure he does town errands for the department on the way to and from work. The vehicle is not used for personal use, he said, but he does use it to go to Hannaford or other similar stores to buy needed supplies, including cleaning materials.

His home is also within a half-mile of the Livermore Falls Treatment Plant that Jay pays to have treat a portion of the town’s wastewater. He goes there often, he said, to do testing and to know what is going on.

Otherwise, each time he received an emergency call, Holt said, he would have to drive up to the North Jay Waste Water Treatment Plant to pick up a town vehicle, and then drive back down to find the problem and fix it, if it is the town’s responsibility.

“I have a quicker response time this way,” Holt told selectmen, especially if there is sewage blockage and it backs into a residence.

The majority of the selectmen said they didn’t see a problem with Holt taking the SUV home.

“It doesn’t make any sense for him to go back up to the treatment plant and then drive back down,” Selectman Steve Barker said.