By EJ Conzola II
The rising cost of highway maintenance equipment has Town of Hampton officials exploring a variety of ways of providing services without a significant increase in town taxes – including disbanding the town’s Highway Department.
“I’m willing to consider everything,” Supervisor David O’Brien said after town Highway Superintendent Tyler McClure laid out his department’s equipment needs for the year at the Town Board’s March 21 meeting.
The town needs to purchase several pieces of equipment — including a one-ton truck, an excavator and a tandem-axle truck with a plow and sander – to replace equipment that is near or at the end of its usable life, McClure said. A fund set up to make this type of purchase, coupled with anticipated revenues from selling the vehicles to be replaced and expected savings on repairs, should permit the town to buy the one-ton and the excavator, but buying the new plow truck would be impossible without a significant tax hike, McClure said.
The cost of a new plow truck has risen from about $280,000 just last year to $330,000 this year – if the town could find one, McClure said. Truck manufacturers cut back on production during the COVID-19 pandemic and have not returned to pre-pandemic production levels, resulting in wait times of up to two years for a new vehicle, he said.
The cost of a new plow truck represents roughly half of the town’s entire 2024 budget of $731,000.
Even if the town were to borrow money for the purchase, the payments on the loan would require a sizeable increase in the town tax rate, McClure said.
The town tax rate jumped from $4.79 per $1,000 of assessed property value in 2023 to $5.54 per $1,000 this year – a nearly 16% increase, according to Washington County Real Property Tax Services. The increase was largely the result of a Town Board decision to create a new full-time position in the Highway Department.
Buying a used vehicle would reduce the town’s initial outlay, but a used truck could quickly begin racking up repair bills — the main reason the town is looking to replace some of its older equipment, McClure noted.
Town officials have looked at several ways to meet their highway equipment needs without relying on taxpayers, including seeking grants. But McClure noted that the town had recently received a state grant to purchase a truck and would be unlikely to get another any time soon.
“There’s only so much you can ask out of them,” he said.
O’Brien noted that the town had sought federal help but had so far been unsuccessful.
The supervisor said he had even explored the possibility of asking another municipality to take over the duties of the town Highway Department but was told by several communities that the cost of doing so would be as much, if not more, than what the town is currently paying for the work.
Resident Renee Rountree asked if the town could hold some sort of fundraiser to help pay for the needed truck, but O’Brien pointed out that the town cannot do so by law. He said a private group could raise the money and donate it to the town.
Hampton is not the only small community struggling with replacing its aging highway equipment. Hartford officials met earlier in the week to begin work on creating a schedule that would allow the town to replace its highway vehicles on a regular basis, but the cost and availability issues are complicating that effort.
Like Hampton, Hartford plans to use saved funds and anticipated savings to purchase a small truck, but the expense of a new plow truck would strain its budget.
Hartford recently purchased a 2024 plow truck, but the next newest vehicle in its fleet dates to 2008.
“To keep this equipment going, it’s just been astronomical,” said town budget officer Joel Carpenter.
Supervisor Scott Hahn said continuing to spend money to repair aging vehicles makes little economic sense.
“We’re stepping over dollars to get to dimes,” Hahn said.
