New Vehicle Policy

Purpose:

This policy is intended to make the city’s fleet of vehicles more sustainable through changes in fleet procurement procedures.

Background:

In the past vehicles have been replaced with new vehicles that were evaluated primarily on intended use and purchase price. In order to develop a more sustainable fleet, all vehicles will now be evaluated on fuel consumption and emissions in addition to cost and intended use.

Procedure:

The green team has created an evaluation method for purchasing new City vehicles. It is contained in an electronic spreadsheet found on the public drive in the folder titled “new vehicles”. This spreadsheet will be filled out and submitted with any requests for new vehicle purchases along with the supporting documentation of the data entered.

The spreadsheet contains two evaluations. The first evaluation page requires the purchaser to document the vehicle’s intended uses, and a class of vehicle they intend to select based on those needs. This is extremely important since the most savings will come through downgrading the size of a new vehicle if possible.

The second evaluation page is a side-by-side comparison of up to seven vehicles in the selected class. They are rated based on cost, fuel consumption, and environmental friendliness. The end result of this evaluation is a score given to each of the vehicles. The vehicle that scores the lowest is the recommended unit to be purchased by the evaluation
process. If the vehicle selected for purchase is not the vehicle with the lowest score, a written explanation should accompany the request, and be submitted to the city manager for approval. Any selection that does not result in a lowest price purchase must also have a purchase waiver filled out and submitted to the Purchasing Department along with the
rest of the documentation.