Breckenridge Texan

By Carla McKeown/Breckenridge Texan

The Breckenridge city leaders expect to save more than $300,000 over the next 10 years by contracting with Enterprise Fleet Management to handle the City’s vehicles.

The City Commissioners approved a proposed contract with Enterprise, in addition to taking action on several other items at their Feb. 7 meeting.

“Essentially, what this is going to do is really give us a holistic approach to approaching our fleet maintenance, which we’ve kind of been very disjointed,” Breckenridge City Manager Cynthia Northrop said about the deal with Enterprise. “So in the end, at the end of the day, it’s going to save us money. It’s going to improve our community image. And there’s some other benefits, too.”

Rami Saad with Enterprise Fleet Management in Fort Worth talked to the commissioners, explaining the program. The parent company is Enterprise Holdings, which also owns Enterprise-Rent-A-Car, he said.

The City of Breckenridge currently handles vehicles the same way that many other cities do, which is to buy vehicles and drive them for as long as they can, until they break down, Saad said. Half of the City’s light- and medium-duty vehicles are 10 years old or older, and four Breckenridge Police Department vehicles are non-operational.

“Older vehicles have higher fuel costs, they’re more costly to maintain, they’re less reliable, they lack safety features that are becoming standard in new vehicles, and at the end of the day, not quite as efficient as you want them to be,” Saad said. “And … (that) leads to an inconsistent and a reactive fleet budget. And reactive is a key word; we want to be proactive. And we want to make decisions on when to replace vehicles, not allow the vehicles to dictate when they’re replaced, which is they get broken down and now we replace it.”

With the Enterprise system, the City will use an open-end lease structure to purchase vehicles. Saad described it as a “partial finance,” rather than a lease like a consumer has with a dealership. “So we’re taking the vehicle; we’re financing it down to a book value, so there’s a pay-off balance at the end,” he said. “Once we sell it, we cover the balance; there’s positive equity leftover. That equity is yours. There are no mileage restrictions, no charges for wear and tear. It’s just as if you own the vehicle. It’s strictly used as a cash flow tool, so that your capital dollars go further.”

Enterprise has already worked out a schedule on which current vehicles need to be replaced and when. The plan is that the vehicles in the City’s fleet will be replaced every five years. One benefit to replacing the vehicles more often is lowered maintenance costs, Saad said, explaining that Enterprise will use local shops for the work.

The commissioners voted 4-0 in approval of the contract; Mayor Pro-tem Rob Durham was not at the meeting.

EMS Contract

Also at this month’s meeting, the city commissioners approved the City’s portion of an agreement between the City, local hospital and Stephens County for ambulance services.

Stephens Memorial Hospital has accepted a bid from Sacred Cross EMS, Inc. to provide ambulance service for the community. As part of an ongoing collaboration, the hospital, the City of Breckenridge and Stephens County each pay one-third of the cost of the service.

Northrop explained that when the hospital solicited bids for the upcoming ambulance service contract, the current provider, AMR, did not submit a bid. Sacred Cross was the only bidder.

The new contract between the hospital and Sacred Cross is for $300,000, plus $13,200 to rent the building for the EMS. That equals $104,400 annually for each of the three entities (hospital, City and County). Based on the previous contract, the City had budgeted $91,666.68 and will present a budget amendment to the commissioners at a later date for the increase.

Sign Ordinance

During the meeting, the commission held a public hearing on changes to the sign ordinance, moving it to its own section of the City’s Code of Ordinances and removing it from the Zoning section.

No one from the public addressed the commission about the ordinance, and the hearing was closed. Then, the commissioners voted to approve the new ordinance.

“So this has been going on actually since a little bit before I got here, and when I got here, I talked with Malcolm (Bufkin, Code Enforcement Officer) and Christi (Tidrow, Fire Department Secretary/Permit Clerk) about the need to update our sign ordinance, specifically for the business district,” Northrop said. “And so we talked to some folks out in the community; we talked with the Downtown Development Council, as well, got some input. And really what our goal was, was to try to streamline that ordinance because it was just very confusing. It was very wordy, and it was not very clear. And so we looked at some other cities’ Central Business District sign ordinances (to develop Breckenridge’s new ordinance).”

The proposed ordinance had already been presented to the City’s Planning and Zoning Commission, which approved it and recommended that the City Commission approve it as well.

Click here to read the ordinance.

Water Meter Replacement Project

The commissioners approved a changer order from Enprotec/Hibbs & Todd Inc. (eHT) on the water meter replacement project.

Using funds from the American Recovery Plan Act, the City of Breckenridge contracted to have the water meters replaced throughout the city. The replacement project started last summer and was scheduled to wrap up on Feb. 11. However, some changes were required in the number of meters and the size of some of the meters. Now, the project is supposed to be complete by March 13.

Other Business

The city commissioners also approved the following:

• An emergency budget amendment to replace a drain line in the City Park.
• Resolution 2023-03 authorizing the continued participation with the steering committee of the cities served by Oncor.
• Ordinance 2023-02 ordering a Municipal General Election to be held on May 6, 2023, for the purpose of electing the Offices of Commissioner Place 3 and Commissioner Place 4. An ordinance approving the Local Option Election for the legalization of the sale of all alcoholic beverages, including mixed beverages within the City of Breckenridge, was approved in October 2022.
• Updates to the City’s Personnel Policy.
• A rate decrease from Texas Gas Service.
• Ordinance 2023-01 repealing and replacing Ordinance 2022-12 establishing a general fee schedule for the City of Breckenridge.
• Resolution 2023-04 awarding a professional services engineering contract for a 2023 CDBG Downtown Revitalization Grant to the engineering firm of Jacobs & Martin.
• The Breckenridge Economic Development Corp. contract to reimburse the Breckenridge Chamber of Commerce for administrative assistance.

Yuri Huntington, the executive director for the Breckenridge Chamber of Commerce, center, presented the chamber’s annual report and hotel/motel tax report to the City Commissioners and others in attendance. (Photo by Tony Pilkington/Breckenridge Texan)

Cutline, top photo: Rami Saad with Enterprise Fleet Management talked to the Breckenridge City Commission about the services the company will offer regarding the City vehicles. (Photo by Tony Pilkington/Breckenridge Texan)