Hillsborough has big expenses in the 2011 fiscal year

The town of Hillsborough has mapped out its budget initiatives for the 2011 fiscal year, and they included over $1 million for vehicle replacements.

The replacement of a 21-year-old fire truck for the Orange Rural Fire Department that serves Hillsborough will cost about $1.03 million.

The current fire truck is a 1989 Aerial 272, which has a 75-foot ladder and the ability to hold 400 gallons of water. The truck has outdated safety features and a frame that is too small to hold all of the necessary equipment.



Jeff Cabe, chief of the Orange County Fire Department, said, “I have been with the fire department for 21 years and I remember taking this truck to its first fire.”

Cabe said that the truck is past due for replacement.

“Manufacturers are only required to carry a specific model’s parts for 10 years,” Cabe said. “So we have been scraping for parts to try to maintain the vehicle.”

Emily Bradford, the budget management analyst for Hillsborough, said, “There was no funding for vehicle replacement in last year’s budget or the current budget.”

“We have been putting off these expenses,” said Bradford.

Eric Peterson, the town manager, said: “No vehicle and equipment replacements took place last year as one of the many steps to avoid raising taxes and water/sewer rates. The town did not raise taxes or water/sewer rates last year in the heart of the recession.”

The town took other cost-cutting measures last year including cutting employee raises and deferring and cutting many other project requests like parks, street re-paving and sidewalk construction.

In addition to the fire truck, a 14-year-old “knuckleboom” truck that’s used for bulk item and tree/limb collection needs to be replaced. It has required over $11,000 in repairs over the last two years.

Peterson said, “At $115,000 it is also an expensive piece of equipment, but a critical part of the town's operations. The vehicle's age, repair costs for maintaining the truck in frontline duty, as well as increased down time are three key factors that tell us it's time to replace this vehicle.”

Three police vehicles totaling approximately $91,000 also need to be replaced. One of the vehicles has more than 180,000 miles.

Peterson said that the town has gotten more years and miles out of the vehicles than expected.

However, the current fire truck’s condition could be a safety issue. Cabe said that the truck cannot account for the many of the changes in streetscape over the last 21 years and with all of the new innovations available, the current truck simply cannot do all of the functions needed to serve the community.

“It’s not like our water truck, which if it breaks down is just like you call AAA and that’s it,” said Cabe. “When something goes wrong I could have a guy 75 feet in the air and that’s when injuries happen.”

Right now, the department boasts a 6-to-7 minute response time and usually has about 1400 emergency response calls per year.

“But, if the equipment starts failing, it will be much harder to get help to the scene,” said Cabe.

The Orange Rural Fire Department has also applied for a $400,000 grant to try to offset the cost. These grants are competitive but they have received funding in the past for important equipment like the “air packs” that allow the fire fighters to avoid smoke inhalation.

“We are trying to make a million-dollar project happen without spending that much,” said Cabe.

The total town revenues for Hillsborough in 2010 were down 18 percent from 2009.

The projected expenditure of the 2011 budget is $14.5 million, about half of which is used for water and sewer expenditures.

The total amount of the replacement vehicles therefore comprise about 1/7th of the General Fund budget.

“As far as paying for the items, we will use something called an installment-purchase agreement,” said Peterson. He estimated that the “knuckleboom” will likely be financed over a five-year period and the ladder truck for the fire department would probably be financed over a seven-to-10 year period.

“We just want to continue to work hard and save as much money as we can,” said Cabe. “And if the money doesn’t come we just have to keep doing what we are here to do as best we can.”

“I'd say that we delayed the replacement of both the ladder truck and ‘knuckleboom’ truck for two to three years because … we were able to ‘squeeze’ a few extra years of front line service out of the vehicles, thus helping to avoid tax and rate increases for the citizens,” said Peterson.