Township staff will explore other options after council rejected over-budget tenders for a planned grader purchase.
At the Dec. 8 council meeting, a staff report recommended council authorize the purchase of a John Deere 872GP grader from Nortrax including a three-year (3,000 hour) extended warranty and a $35,000 trade-in allowance for a total of $361,951 plus HST.
The tender was one of two received. The other, from Toromont Cat offered a $23,000 trade-in on a $380,000 grader leaving a total cost of $357,000 plus HST.
The total budget for the grader purchase was $350,000 with $20,000 being funded from the trade-in value of the replaced grader.
That put the net budget for the grader purchase, less the trade-in allowance, at $330,000 making the lowest tender $38,466 over the budget when non-recoverable HST was factored in.
CAO Brad McRoberts suggested in a report the difference could be almost completely funded through surplus funds from under-budget fleet purchases in 2015, but councillors agreed to defer the decision on the grader purchase to a special budget session planned for the following day.
Councillor Michael Martin suggested deferring the decision “just because of the capital budget we’re looking at tomorrow and some of the challenges we’re looking at.”
Councillor Dennis Craven asked if there would be any advantage in re-tendering the purchase.
McRoberts explained that because existing bidders’ prices have already been made public, council would have to “give it a bit of time” before re-tendering.
“Some suggest that’s as much as a year,” he stated.
At the Dec. 9 budget meeting, council defeated the re-introduced resolution to purchase the John Deere grader and directed staff to “explore other short-term leasing options for a third grader in the gravel maintenance season.”
