ERIN – The Town of Erin will be buying a new fire truck but they’re going to have to pony up a little more dough than anticipated.
At a Thursday afternoon meeting, Erin council approved the purchase of a new fire tanker truck at a cost of $554,000.
This is $104,000 more than the $450,000 it was budgeted for.
Fire chief Jim Sawkins explained to council this was not the lowest bid, another Winnipeg-based bidder was about $1,900 lower, but there were other considerations.
“We would have had to go out and perform a final inspection which they were going to charge us an additional $1,750 per person for flights and hotels and then we would have had to bring it back,” Sawkins said and the bidder wouldn’t be able to commit to a 300-day delivery timeframe. It would have been able to do somewhere between 600 and 630 days before delivery.
This is why Sawkins recommended going with Dependable Emergency Vehicles from Mississauga which will deliver within the requested amount of time.
Sawkins said builders have told him the increase in cost is due to the ripple effects from the pandemic impacting the supply chain and the company is very busy at this moment as well.
The budget shortfall will be funded through the emergency vehicle reserve.
