Bountiful maintenance shop saves dollars by keeping repairs 'in-house'

BOUNTIFUL — City crews for Bountiful said they regularly save tens of thousands in taxpayer dollars thanks to a full-service shop that maintains some 900 pieces of equipment, all without having to outsource the work.

Jared Edge, the city's fleet and shop supervisor, said through doing the work in-house, various departments are able to avoid costs in transporting equipment to service shops for jobs that are often very costly. Edge pointed out one example: a hydraulic lift for a backhoe, used by the city's water department.

"They can be anywhere from a couple thousand to $5,000," Edge said of the lifts. "Oftentimes, just packing and seals that are required to rebuild it will (instead) cost somewhere in the neighborhood of anywhere from $50 to maybe $200."

Edge said a crew of six full-time mechanics will maintain, upgrade, and repair equipment for various departments, like sanitation, streets and police. The shop is also contracted for repairs to fire engines and vehicles with the South Davis Metro Fire District.

"I've done reports in the past, and we've been able to achieve what we've been able to achieve for about 25% of the cost of outsourcing," Edge said.

Edge adds that workers with the streets department will often pitch in and help inside the maintenance shop when they're not busy in the city.

"I see a lot of other municipalities contracting those services out," he explained. "We're able to pass the value along to the residents of Bountiful by keeping those in-house, as well as provide them a high level of service."

Edge said that between the various city departments, workers have also been able to innovate, for example, retrofitting retired sanitation trucks to help vacuum leaves in the fall, or working together to build a small brine plant to keep their plow trucks supplied for the winter.

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