County Insurance Increases; Truck, Equipment Bids Awarded
Posted
Daniel Riordan-driordan@timesuniononline.com
Kosciusko County Commissioners met Tuesday morning and awarded several contracts for new equipment and trucks for the highway department. Scott Tilden, county highway superintendent, gave recommendations to the commissioners. In terms of equipment, the county only received one bid from Southeastern Equipment Company of Fort Wayne. A contract for equipment, including trade-in of county highway equipment, came to $334,300 with the Fort Wayne-based company. A 2011 front-wheel drive chip spreader ($172,800 after trade) and a 2011 3,500-gallon asphalt distributor mounted on a 2012 Peterbilt truck ($161,500 after trade) were approved for purchase by the county commissioners. The commissioners also approved the purchase of four single-axle trucks made by W.A. Jones from Hill Truck Sales, South Bend. The county received five bids for the trucks. Tilden said one vendor gave two different bids. During his discussion with the commissioners, Tilden said some of the bids he received didn’t meet the specifications set out by the county. The Kosciusko County Council approved an additional appropriation during its February meeting to allow the highway department more money to purchase equipment. The commissioners appeared with Tilden during that February meeting in which the council approved $1.5 million in additional appropriations for both new equipment and highway projects. In February, the plan was set to purchase four new trucks, which Tilden said would cost about $135,000 each. Tilden said the county has looked at buying used trucks, but fewer and fewer are available. The exorbitant cost, said Tilden, is due in part to new emission standards for diesel engines, which has increased the cost by about $30,000. The cost from Hill Truck Sales averaged out to less than what Tilden expected, with each truck costing about $128,690. The highway department had four trucks with more than 400,000 miles on them. Those were the trucks that were traded in. Insurance premiums for the county are going up. County Administrator Ron Robinson said that through the county’s broker, only one bid was received for health insurance. The county will increase how much it pays out of pocket by $10,000 from $50,000 to $60,000 to keep the insurance from going up by 22 percent. Instead, it will go up 7 percent. As for liability insurance, Robinson said it “went up drastically”. The lone bid was $59,000 more than it had been previously approved by the county commissioners. The total cost was $643,000. Kosciusko County American Bikers Aim Toward Education members Ty Marshall and Cheyenne Stewart gave a presentation about May being motorcycle safety month.
