Sharing equipment saves
A cluster of small towns in metropolitan Minneapolis-St. Paul is saving money through an informal arrangement for borrowing heavy equipment and attachments. By working together, the communities can get more use out of equipment that would be too expensive for each to own individually.
A community the size of Mounds View, Minn., — population 2,793 — only has enough manpower to justify owning a small amount of equipment and cannot afford machinery that would stand idle most of the year, says Tim Pittman, public works supervisor. “If another community owns a piece of equipment that you use infrequently, then you don’t have to buy it,” he says.
For example, Mounds View borrows a boom truck from Lino Lakes to change lights at its three skating rinks once a year and a small grader from Blaine for working its 10 ball fields in the spring. For its part, Mounds View frequently lends attachments for its Bobcat S250 and S185 skid loaders. Particularly popular are a DigTech for grinding asphalt off a surface prior to patching and a broom/hopper for sweeping up the ground asphalt. Additionally, New Brighten, one of the larger cities in the group with about 22,600 residents, often lends a frost breaker attachment for a back hoe that can be used to access water main breaks when as much as two to three feet of ground is frozen.
The small towns’ lending arrangement dates back more than two decades. In 1979, the Mounds View Public Works Department began helping other communities by loaning equipment to clean sewers. The loan program became more active in the late 1980s when then-supervisor Mike Ulrich found it would be less expensive for Mounds View to purchase equipment and plow municipal streets during snow storms than it would be to pay county crews to do the work, Pittman says. About that time, the city also bought a televising camera to locate problem areas in sewer pipes. “Several communities asked to rent our equipment,” Pittman says. “Instead, we helped them out because we knew we would eventually need help ourselves with a piece of equipment they had.”
In addition to Mounds View, New Brighten, Lino Lakes and Blaine, other regular participants in the loan program are the bordering towns of Spring Lake Park, Shoreview, Arden Hills and Roseville, but equipment has been sent as far as Apple Valley, which is 35 miles away. Public works officials keep up-to-date on each other’s equipment during monthly meetings of the Minnesota Street Superintendents Association.
By borrowing from each other, communities can try out certain tools before purchasing their own. Mounds View recently bought a van-mounted televising camera to help identify sewer pipes that need replacing as the town repaves its roads. Because neighboring towns previously borrowed Mounds View’s trailer-mounted unit, public works officials from the other communities are interested in bidding on the old unit, Pittman says.
Sharing resources comes naturally to Mounds View. The responsibility for streets, parks, water, sewer and surface water all fall under the Department of Public Works. Specific equipment and salaries are paid from separate accounts for the five areas of operation, but the machinery and workers’ time are shared. When one division needs a hand or there is an emergency, the others help out.
The same attitude extends to the lending program. If another city needs a specific piece of equipment or attachment, the equipment owner will lend it when it is available, or immediately if there is an emergency. Coordinating equipment use has not been a problem, Pittman says, because regular maintenance can be planned and emergencies take priority.
