Analyst: City's fleet is in need of work
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on December 31, 2014 1:46 PM
The city's fleet of vehicles, its garage operations and the number of people and resources it has to do the job need work, a consultant recently told Goldsboro City Council.
Ron Hall of CST Fleet Management analyzed several aspects of the city's fleets based on what he called 'industry best practices.'
After examining the operation, Hall recommended that the city provide additional staff and training for the city garage, as well as providing more tools, raising both the capital and operational budgets, updating equipment and employing a service writer for the city garage to act as a liaison between the city mechanics and people requesting maintenance.
"During my observation at the garage, I noticed guys using four jacks to lift up vehicles to work underneath them. That's dangerous," Hall said. "They said the lifts for vehicles were broken and that they've requested new lifts but can't get them because money isn't available."
Hall said in addition to updating tools and equipment and hiring three additional staff members, mechanic pay should be raised. Currently, he said it's about $13 per hour. A fairer wage for mechanics, he said, is around $40 per hour.
Hiring a service writer would allow the mechanics to spend more time working on vehicles. The way the garage is currently set up -- and what the city is moving away from -- is that anyone who needs maintenance with the city simply "walks into an open bay and grabs a mechanic and tells them what they need done," Public Works Director Jose Martinez said.
Goldsboro's vehicles, which total 550, have an average age of 22 years. This old equipment leads to excessive maintenance costs for the city and prolonged periods of downtime when the vehicles are out of commission while they are repaired.
Of the 550 vehicles, Hall said 115 are underutilized and 42 of them are good candidates to share among departments to raise the utilization of individual vehicles.
Annually, the city needs to spend $1.2 million to $1.6 million per year on maintenance of vehicles alone, which needs to be closer to $800,000, Hall said. To do this, the city can buy new vehicles where applicable, therefore lowering overall costs in the future.
Council took no action on the matter at its meeting Monday.