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County to switch fuel provider in 2024
With a cost savings that could be in the area of $25,000, Putnam County vehicles will be running on fuel from a different provider to begin 2024.
The Putnam County Commissioners recently authorized County Engineer Jim Peck to begin purchasing fuel from Heritage Petroleum of Evansville to start 2024.
While the cost will fluctuate based on the petroleum market throughout the year, as of when bids were submitted early in December, Heritage had a price of $1.9034 per gallon for unleaded and $2.5858 for both on-road and off-road diesel. With Co-Alliance, meanwhile, the rack price for unleaded as of Nov. 27 was $2.0204 and $2.7506 for on-road diesel and $2.7536 for off-road.
These translate to an annual estimated cost (based on those prices) of $414,394 for Heritage compared to $440,448 from Co-Alliance.
Meanwhile, bids submitted by two other providers add up to an estimated annual cost of $469,493 from Great Lakes Petroleum and $430,679 from Petroleum Traders.
The Putnam County Commissioners have been trying for several years to get more bids for the fuel used not only by the Putnam County Highway Department, but also other county vehicles such as Putnam County Sheriff’s Office SUVs and Putnam County EMS ambulances.
Peck took the bid information and put together a table with yearly estimates for each company based on normal annual use.
“I greatly appreciate you writing it out because we’ve never had choices before,” Commissioner Rick Woodall said.
While there was a second bid in one other year, the commissioners ultimately stuck with Co-Alliance based on knowing their system and responsiveness with delivery.
Now the county is trying something else, choosing to give Heritage a trial period of three to six months at least.
“I think we use Heritage to start, give them a shot,” Woodall said.
As is common practice with county highway bids, the commissioners ultimately accepted all fuel bids in order to have options as the year passes.
The fuel bids were accepted as part of a blanket motion on all highway bids. All were opened in early December and reviewed.
The motion also included accepting bids on bituminous material, hot mix asphalt, short-span bridges, metal culverts, polyethylene culverts, chip and seal materials, lane striping, traffic signage, fog seal, stone and weed control.
Peck also noted that the State of Indiana has raised its maximum contribution to Community Crossings projects from $1 million to $1.5 million.
With this in mind, he suggested that the county needs to set aside $500,000 for such projects, rather than $333,333, since the local 25-percent match would also go up.
Woodall said he didn’t see how the county could do so, given that it is already facing a shortfall of $800,000 relative to proposed road work in 2024.
The matter, along with how to address said shortfall, will be discussed in the first meeting of 2024 and beyond.
In other business:
• Peck presented a pair of bids regarding radio equipment for highway trucks. J&K Communications said getting radios up to date will take $98,786.37, while JES & Sons said it would take $53,768.16.
The major difference in the bids is that J&K said the county’s existing equipment is out of date and can’t be used, while JES was willing to work with existing radios and upgrade them.
Under the JES bid, the highway radios would be connected to Putnam County Dispatch rather than highway workers having to use cell phones for communications while in their trucks.
Peck said he was not looking for a decision at this time, but was giving an update on something the commissioners have been demanding for several meetings.
• The commissioners also approved a pair of emergency claims for the highway department.
One was for $189,234 from the hazardous waste fund to pay for asphalt materials for 2024. This claim was subsequently approved by the Putnam County Council.
The other claim was $2,824.90 to Epic Insurance for an environmental site pollution policy on the fueling station at the highway department.
• Peck also noted the need to schedule a meeting regarding the bridge inventory and inspection report, as well as the local road safety plan.
These will take place at some point after Jan. 1.
Peck said that one thing that has come out of the local road safety plan already was INDOT taking note of the need for flashers in the area of South Putnam High School on both U.S. 231 and U.S. 40.
INDOT is already in the process of making this happen.
“So, the local road safety plan is already paying dividends,” Peck said.