County of Brant Council supported a pre-budget approval request to replace 18 County fleet vehicles during its Committee of the Whole, Administration and Operations meeting on Tuesday, November 19, 2024.
The report, submitted by Greg Demers, the County’s director of roads, recommended that staff be directed to start the vehicle and equipment purchase process in advance of the 2025 budget deliberations, currently planned for approval by the end of February 2025, in order to secure the necessary vehicles and equipment needed to carry out County of Brant services.
The request at hand is to replace 18 vehicles and equipment of various sizes, with an estimated replacement value of $3,460,000, including:
Roads
- X1 Large frontend loader
- X1 Road grader
- X1 Loader/Backhoe
- X2 tandem trucks equipped with winter packages
- X1 Sign truck, 1 tonne chassis with sign body
- X3 pickup trucks
Building
- 1 One SUV hybrid
Parks and Cemeteries
- 3 pickup trucks
- 1 Loader/Backhoe
Forestry
- 1 Pickup truck Arena
- 1 Ice Resurfacer
Property Management
- 1 Pickup truck Solid Waste
- 1 Telehandler
According to Demer’s report, the reason for the pre-approval is because if the County were to wait for budget approval in early 2024, it risks “not receiving needed vehicles and equipment. By not replenishing equipment in a timely manner, the County is at risk of not providing or meeting its approved service goals due to costly repairs and downtime.”
When Councillor John Bell asked if this was included in the financial forecast last year or if it came out of the woodwork, Demers said this was something that finance staff have been working on for ten years.
“We actually have a ten year plan so these were already forecasted. Some of these vehicles were actually forecasted to be replaced last year but we pushed off replacement at that time due to the budgetary concerns and so now we’re playing a little bit of catch up. When I joined the County many years ago, we started talking and built a ten year plan. The reason why I’m bringing the report forward today is, this would normally go through the budgetary process, and because that’s going to be later in the season, I don’t want to lose the opportunity to place the vehicle orders.”
Demers noted that while they have stretched and repurposed the vehicles as much as they can, there is significant need to replace them.
“So you’re aware, some of these vehicles date back all the way to 2006 and some of the vehicles have in excess of 400,000 kilometres on them,” said Demers. “Some of these vehicles are very essential to our service and we can’t have them break down and they’re starting to show signs of wear, so we’ve done our best to stretch them and there’s a couple more that we’ve pushed off. I know this is a big ask, but these are essential, and we’ve talked a lot with all the departments so that we could verify that these are their needs.”
He said the reason they’re looking to get pre-approval for the purchase now is because of wait times.
“If we want the vehicles replaced in 2025 we need to place the orders,” said Demers. “When municipalities buy vehicles, there’s an ordering window and the vehicles are placed in that ordering queue. If we don’t get into that queue, then we don’t get our vehicles, and that’s one of the things that a lot of municipalities are struggling with.”
Councillor John Pierce asked what will happen with the current vehicles once they’re no longer in use, and Demers said it will depend on what it is.
“For things like the front end loader, what we would do is put that out and then ask for a trade so we can get some trade in values,” he said. “On the pickup trucks, we send those to auction, so that the community, if they wish to purchase something, they’ll have the same opportunity as anyone else.”
The recommendation was then carried by a vote of 10 to 0, noting that Councillor Christine Garneau declared a conflict of interest.
The final vote to approve the recommendation will come to council during its regular meeting at a later date.
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
