DPW Mechanics Stay, Added Work of Firetruck Maintenance

Previous discussions of some of the work by the was eliminated during last night's Mayor and Council meeting. Instead, the two mechanics within the department will remain where they are, but have the added responsibility of performing preventative maintenance on each of the 's trucks.

Back in, DPW Superintendent John Lynch gave a presentation on how outsourcing parts of his department would cost the borough more in the long run.

The department is staffed by 15 employees, two of which are mechanics that oversee all borough owned vehicles from the DPW trucks to the Police Department cruisers at a cost of approximately $73,000 annually.

The rest of the department handles snow and leaf removal, picking up garbage and recycling, removing downed trees during storms, clearing storm drains, and caring for the parks and fields in the borough.

"If my department is to work on the fire trucks, I need two mechanics," Lynch informed the council. "You need to look at the full picture. It's not just the police cars but the larger equipment as well."

According to Lynch, the two mechanics perform oil changes on each of the 12 police cruisers once a month along with overall maintenance on his department's trucks, repairs on snowplows and more. 

"We'd be providing the same service that an outside vendors does for the fire truck maintenance," Lynch said. "It would be the preventative maintenance, brakes, tires, oil changes, electrical issues, basically going bumper to bumper. The only thing they could not work on is the ladder truck."

Instead, the ladder truck will continue to be sent to Fire and Safety Services in South Plainfield for maitenance and repairs. The work by Ruscon  approximately $112 per hour for an eight-hour span at the Center.

Lynch stated that his men will have a total cost of $3,400 just for a year's worth of labor, as opposed to the $11,000 that was spent on labor in 2010 for work on the firetrucks.

"The preventative maintenance done by the DPW could see savings from spending $112 per hour down to $44 per hour," Assistant Fire Chief John Mauthe said. "That is obviously a considerable savings to the commnity. I can't tell you what the savings will be for the remainder of this year, but once we get into next year and see where the savings for parts and labor is I will be able to."

According to Mauthe, the fire department has seven vehicles that need preventative maintenance prior to the end of the year that he would like to schedule before the fall leaf pick-up begins for the DPW.

But because money from one department can not be transferred to another until November, the DPW will instead bill the fire department for the work on the seven vehicles.

Going forward, the fire department's line item in their budget for truck maintenance will be included in the DPW's budget instead. Not all of the line item would be removed as the fire department will still need to send the ladder truck out for repairs.