Vehicles Purchased With Debate

OCEAN CITY — Resort officials this week approved the purchase of four new vehicles funded through the vehicle trust fund, but not before some debate about the process.

The Mayor and Council had before them Tuesday a request to approve the purchase of four new vehicles for various departments including risk management, special events, IT and the police department, along with the cost of outfitting a new Jeep purchased to pull the Boardwalk trams with a total estimated cost of around $104,000. The funding would come from the vehicle trust fund, a savings account of sorts set up for the purpose of replacing vehicles not included in the approved budget.

The vehicle trust is funded by contributions from the various city departments along with the sale or auction of vehicle taken out of service when they have reached mileage milestones or have reached the end of their useful life. It is used by the city as a rainy day fund of sorts to cover unexpected and unbudgeted costs when vehicles are damaged or destroyed, for example, and need replacement outside the typical confines of the budget cycle.

Procurement Manager Catrice Parsons explained some of the vehicle purchase requests before the Mayor and Council on Tuesday were for those reasons.

“One of the vehicles in the transportation department was involved in an accident in August and was totaled,” she said. “There was another vehicle in the police department that was damaged in an accident and needs to be replaced. They need to be replaced because they left a void in the fleets for those departments.”

Councilman Wayne Hartman asked if the departments had made do without the damaged or totaled vehicles thus far, was there really an urgency to replace them.

“What I’m hearing is we lost two vehicles and there is a void,” he said. “If they were able to function without them, do we really need to replace them?”

Parsons explained the lost vehicles were largely seasonal and the various departments were able to manage through the remainder of the summer, but they still need to be replaced. Budget Manager Jennie Knapp explained how the vehicle trust fund is in place for just this type of scenario.

“Each department pays into the vehicle trust fund each year so we have money available when these unexpected things come up,” she said.

In this case, the vehicle trust fund appears to be utilized for its intended purpose. However, Councilman John Gehrig, continuing a narrative he began during a meeting last month when an unexpected savings was applied to a different purpose, questioned if there should be a rush to spend money every time there is an unexpected windfall.

“It’s great there was a savings, but it seems like this comes up at every meeting,” he said. “Now, we have this savings that we’re going to spend on vehicles that were cut from the budget. I don’t want to get into micro-managing details. That’s what you guys do and that’s what we pay you for, but it seems like we’re always finding some savings and looking for ways to use it.”

Knapp explained utilizing some of balance in the vehicle trust fund to replace the aforementioned vehicles was exactly why the fund exists.

“It’s not like we’re looking for ways to spend money,” she said. “These vehicles are needed and they had reached the end of their useful life, but we’re kept in service because their replacements weren’t budgeted for.”

Parsons explained the money in the trust fund comes from a variety of sources including town-owned vehicles offered for auction, which has been successful for the most part for the town.

“In all honesty, we’re getting rid of some pretty rough vehicles,” she said. “We had a trash truck we had budgeted $10,000 for and we actually got $65,000.”

About The Author: Shawn Soper

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Shawn Soper has been with The Dispatch since 2000. He began as a staff writer covering various local government beats and general stories. His current positions include managing editor and sports editor. Growing up in Baltimore before moving to Ocean City full time three decades ago, Soper graduated from Loch Raven High School in 1981 and from Towson University in 1985 with degrees in mass communications with a journalism concentration and history.