Available free cash amounts to just over $2.4 million.
WESTFIELD – Mayor Daniel M. Knapik will ask the City Council next week to approve spending more than $500,000 of available free cash to finance vehicle replacements and school maintenance projects.
The state Department of Revenue last week certified city free cash, from fiscal 2011, at $2,453,013.
A request for $95,000 will allow the city to lease, towards purchase, two sanitation trucks for the Department of Public Works, a move Knapik and DPW Superintendent James M. Mulvenna said will save the city a considerable sum.
Mulvenna estimated the cost of the two vehicles, if purchased, at $438,000. But, he said the lease-to-own program will save the city in terms of interest and bonding cost. The lease, he said will be paid over a five-year period at which time the city will own the trucks.
“We have purchased new vehicles, a front loader and dump truck, this way in the past two years,” said Mulvenna.
Knapik said he will request another $126,000 to replace two command vehicles and a vehicle for the department mechanic at the Fire Department.
Chief Mary R. Regan said additional vehicle needs are expected to be addressed in the department’s Fiscal 2013 budget.
“The vehicles being replaced now are at least 10 years old and are approaching, or passed, 100,000 miles each,” she said referring the mechanic, chief’s and deputy chief’s vehicles.
One truck the department is looking to replace is the 23-year-old platform vehicle.
Regan said a new platform may be worthy of a lease program since the projected cost is more than $1.2 million.
“The problem with this vehicle is the cost of maintenance,” the chief said, referring to recent hydrolic system repairs. “Unexpected repairs between $7,000 and $10,000 is painful,” she said.
A free cash expenditure of $300,000 will restore funding to the School Department maintenance accounts, Knapik said.
“This will restore funding that was not provided last year and this year and allow the department to attend to maintenance needs,” the mayor said.
Knapik will also ask for $30,000 to finance asbestos removal in two antiquated buildings at Barnes Regional Airport. The buildings, formerly used by the Civil Air Patrol, will be razed to prepare the site for development.