Town irons out payment plan for firetruck

0
63

PROSPECT — The town finalized how it will pay for a new fire engine, and the result is the new firetruck will end up costing $68,000 less than originally planned.

Voters approved the lease purchase of a new fire engine — a Pierce custom velocity pumper tanker — at a town meeting in June. At the time, the principal cost of the firetruck was $848,870, and officials planned to pay the firetruck off over a 10-year lease with annual payments of $104,639. With interest, the cost would have been $1,046,390.

At the meeting, there was discussion about using money from the town’s fund balance, surplus funds, to put down some money toward the truck. That’s what the town will do.

Mayor Robert Chatfield said the town ended up getting a discount and the final principal cost of the new engine is $815,108. The town will make a payment of $250,000 on the truck when it’s expected to arrive in August 2019. The money comes from the fund balance. Chatfield said it has been transferred to the town’s capital account for the firetruck.

The town will then make nine annual lease payments of $80,939 to pay off the truck, starting in August 2019, according to information Chatfield presented the Town Council last week. In the end, the town will spend a total of $978,453 for the new engine.

Firematic Truck Sales out of Rocky Hill, which was the only company to bid on the firetruck, will supply the firetruck. The new engine will replace Engine 5, which will be 20 years old next year and reach the end of its life span under the standards followed by the Prospect Volunteer Fire Department.