The City of Carroll received bids for a new police vehicle. However, this one was not in the planned rotation according to Police Chief, Brad Burke.
The insurance company has agreed to pay for the loss at $17,131 and they will also pay for the removal and installation of the equipment and replacement of any items that cannot be transferred to a new body style. The standard purchasing policy was waived as this was an emergency and bids were requested from local dealers. Two were received, one from Wittrock Motors for a 2020 Dodge Durango V8 Hemi at just under $31,500 and three from Champion Ford for Hybrid, Ecoboost and 3.3L V6 options ranging from over $34,800 to just under $38,000. Burke says their recommendation, however, would be to not go with the lowest bid submitted. The Dodge has a center console that creates some difficulties with equipment placement and the local installer has never worked with that make. Since the officers share vehicles, Burke says they also prefer to keep the layouts the same from unit to unit.
Burke adds there is no used police vehicle market, so they do not have that option available to them. In addition, the new hybrid has only about 1,000 miles on it so they don’t have enough hard data to determine how it would compare to their regular fleet vehicles. Since this was an unplanned expense, he says the Carroll City Council will need to address funding the difference in the future.
There is a 12 to 14 week wait on delivery and an estimated two to four weeks for installation of equipment. This will put the delivery around June, when the department will also be working to replace two more vehicles in their regular rotation. Burke has been given approval to place an order for the 2020 Ford Interceptor Utility 3.3L V6 at $34,848.
