RUMFORD — The town has entered into a lease/purchase agreement of a new grader for public works.
That action was taken in a 5-0 vote by the Select Board at their meeting on Nov. 21.

Public Works Supt. Dale Roberts said that during the summer, the grader was up for trade this year for trade. “It’s a 2008 and there’s quite a bit of rust on it. The town manager wanted me to get two prices. One to do a complete rehab of it, and purchase price.”

He said John Deere came up and went right through it. “To do a complete rehab, paint, go through all the wiring harnesses, new engine, transmission, the whole four-wheel drive system, it’s $270,000. But that does not include the turntable, the moldboard and the cylinder rams.”

Roberts got prices from John Deere (Bangor) and Beauregard Equipment Case (Scarborough). Case came in at $339,522 but that does not include a wing for it. John Deere’s price came in at $405,369 and they gave us a $50,000 trade, so the balance would be $356,391. Theirs does come with a wing.

“We don’t have enough money in capital to purchase it, I think we ought to lease it for eight years. Lower payments, then at the end of the lease it’s ours or they’ll turn around and give us another one and keep leasing them,” he said.

Roberts said John Deere was saying a lot of towns will do that. “They’ll just keep leasing them, and after so many years, they’ll just rotate a new one.”

He said the town’s current grader has almost 50,000 miles on it and about 9,000 hours. It needs a good rehab or purchase. “John Deere has one right up in Bangor in stock right now. We went up and looked at it. If there’s a motion to accept it, we’d have it in January for plowing.”

Town Manager George O’Keefe said, “I inspected the piece of equipment myself, given that this is a pretty significant decision and I also took the chance to briefly operate it to just get a sense of the condition of the equipment. I do have my own experience operating some various types of heavy equipment, and I just want to report that based on my visual inspection, particularly the engine compartment, there is no doubt in my mind that that piece of equipment is at a risk of catastrophic failure and both on the hydraulic lines which are in need of rehabilitation and show substantial signs of sunrot and I think there also is a lot more grease inside that engine compartment than what I would generally comfortable with operating anything.”

He continued, “So I am certainly persuaded that it is a very bad idea for us to try to get through this winter with that particular grader. In the longer term, we do use the grader for areas where we need multiple drive wheel traction. It’s probably a good idea for us to look at some options other than using a grader for that type of work in the future for snowplowing and so forth. But it’s quite clear to me that we need a new piece of equipment.”

O’Keefe said, “I think that it is advisable in this circumstance to pursue this particular lease opportunity and the other thing I understand is that this grader has the ability to handle grading roads using GPS and some automated management of creating a grade on a road which likely is going to lead to labor savings and time savings as well.”

Roberts said the lease price over seven years would be $63,539 per year.

O’Keefe said money for the lease would come out of the capital equipment account.

Board chair Chris Brennick was assured by Roberts that there enough money to cover the lease for the 84 months, without having to increase public works’ capital requests in the next fiscal year.

Roberts noted, “We’ve leased before. We’ve leased our snowblowers in the past and it worked out good.”

He also added, “In a couple years, if we want to pay it off, we can pay if off at no penalty.”

Regarding maintenance, Roberts said, “The first full year for maintenance on it, they’ll come and maintain it right at the garage and we change the oil and stuff after that. It’s got extended warranty for the life of the grader as we own it because with the emissions and stuff on it, I told them want the extended warranty plus. As we were up there yesterday, they were putting fenders on it because right now with this one going up with the slush and snow covers the whole thing. We’re trying to minimize the sand and the salt that gets all over that machine. They’re going to put fenders on front and the rear.”