The Baldwin City Council has approved an unexpected request to buy a new firetruck after some discussion about how the $584,657 purchase would fit into the city’s budget.

Although the purchase was eventually approved 5-0 at the Dec. 15 City Council meeting, members had questions about the timing of the request. Council members Julie Constantinescu and Scott Lauridsen both asked why the request for such an expensive item was made at the end of the year instead of during the 2021 budget discussions that took place over the summer.

Baldwin City Fire Chief Terry Baker told them that the fire department had been looking to replace one of its trucks, which was purchased in 1993 and had multiple maintenance issues. Baker said the department had been in talks with two manufacturers of firetrucks, Rosenbauer America and Pierce Manufacturing, during the last year in anticipation of bringing a request to the City Council in 2021. He said the department had worked with Rosenbauer to fit a truck to Baldwin City’s needs and that the company had quoted a price of $584,657. Rosenbauer was the less expensive of the two companies, he said: the starting price Pierce had quoted was more than $800,000.

But earlier this month, Baker said he learned that the price of the Rosenbauer truck would go up by $50,000 if the city didn’t submit a purchase order by Jan. 1.

When Baker learned of the impending price increase, he brought the request to the City Council’s budget and finance subcommittee, on which Lauridsen and Councilman Cory Venable sit. The subcommittee asked city financial adviser Ben Hart to examine whether the city could fit the unexpected request into its finances.

Hart said the city would be able to include the firetruck in a bond issue that the city was planning for January. The bond issue is intended to provide permanent financing for the city’s new police station, improvements to the old gym building at Eighth and Chapel streets and other needs. The firetruck would add $72,000 to the annual bond payment, which would total about $800,000 a year, he said.

Purchasing the truck using the bond issue would also allow the city to buy the truck with an interest rate of 1.5%, which would be less expensive than buying it through a lease-purchase option, Hart said.

After hearing from Hart about the bond issue plan, the council approved the firetruck purchase, but Lauridsen warned that the expense would have consequences in the future.

“It sounds like it has to fit now as opposed to later,” he said. “But ideally we should understand it will inhibit us from doing things down the road unless we again want to increase the debt load.”

The council would still need to approve the bond issue, which it is slated to consider at a future meeting.

It will take Rosenbauer more than a year to complete the custom-built firetruck, and the company won’t request the first payment until the truck is delivered, City Administrator Glenn Rodden said. The first payment won’t be due until the spring of 2022, and Baker expects the truck to serve the city for 15 to 20 years.

The fire department has one more truck, a 2004 model, that should not need to be replaced for 10 to 15 years, Baker said.