This 21-year-old Franklin Fire engine is up for replacement. The department is spending $500,000 to purchase a base model replacement.
Leeann Doerflein | Daily Journal
The old rig is more than two decades old.
Its leather seats have rips and tears in the seams from 21 years of use. The cabinets have scratches from taking out and putting away equipment during countless runs to car crashes, fires and medical emergencies. Some of the equipment and technology onboard is outdated, but still serves its purpose.
The cost to replace the fire engine: about $500,000.
That is less than the Franklin Fire Department has spent on new fire vehicles in the past, city officials say. In the past, fire chiefs chose to customize vehicles by resizing compartments on the truck to fit current equipment. Since equipment will be upgraded long before the truck, Fire Chief Matt Culp chose to stick with the base model to save taxpayers money, he said.
At today’s prices, an engine typically starts at $650,000, and gets more expensive with customization. For comparison, the last new engine the city purchased in 2016 was about $825,000. Before that, in 2010, the city spent $625,000, said Brett Jones, the city’s fleet manager and street commissioner.
By purchasing a demo truck directly from a dealer, the city was able to get the truck for about $97,000 below the asking price, Culp said. It is a new truck that was originally purchased by a dealership to be a display model. Instead of displaying the truck, the dealer will send it directly to the city after it is manufactured and inspected, he said.
The total to buy and outfit the truck is about $575,000, which will come from the city’s Cumulative Capital Development Fund. The amount represents the price of the truck plus $75,000 in equipment, not including several pieces of equipment Culp purchased for the engine in this year’s budget, he said.
This truck comes in cheaper than past purchases without sacrificing quality. The new engine is the same type of Emergency One vehicle that is already in use at the city’s fire stations, he said.
“Brett and I tried to get the best model for the money,” Culp said. “As the department head, I think it is my responsibility to get the value for the citizens.”
The department has one engine for each of the city’s three fire stations, plus a spare engine to substitute in when one is out for repairs. The engine that is being replaced is the city’s spare engine, which is currently in use at Station No. 21 while the station’s main engine is out for repairs, he said.
It is about six years past its industry-recommended lifespan. Typically, a truck is used for 10 years as a main response vehicle, and for five more years as a reserve vehicle, Jones said.
This one is long overdue.
Its engine had to be replaced at a cost of several thousand dollars earlier this year. That was an expense the department had no choice but to pay because new vehicles take about 18 months to arrive following an order. Like other automakers, fire engine manufacturers are also dealing with a parts shortage due to the pandemic, Culp said.
The replacement is long overdue because the city’s replacement plan lapsed, but Culp and Jones are putting together a replacement plan they plan to keep up with, they said.
The next purchase will be a ladder truck to replace the department’s 16-year-old model. The ladder truck replacement is estimated to cost more than $1 million. Based on the ladder truck’s age, the hope is to replace it in the next couple of years, Culp said.
Once the ladder truck is replaced, the city’s older engines are planned to be replaced in five-year intervals, as long as there is funding in the budget for it, he said.
Replacing the three remaining vehicles in the next 10 years will cost taxpayers at least $2 million.
