NCQC votes to buy new vehicle for NCSO in special meeting

By Staff, 03/23/17 10:52 AM

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PRESCOTT – A special called meeting of the Nevada County Quorum Court was held Thursday morning to deal with the purchase of a new vehicle for the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office.

Nevada County Judge Mark Glass said a full-time deputy totaled a patrol car when he hit two deer. The car in question, he added, had more than 200,000 miles on it. The county has filed an insurance claim and is waiting for word from the insurance company on how much the county will get.

Justice of the Peace Bob Cummings, told the other JPs the car was initially purchased when Bobby Carlton was sheriff.

Glass said the county is also filing on equipment damaged in the accident, such as the flashing lights and vehicle camera. The car will be replaced with a 2016 Dodge Ram pickup with four doors and four-wheel drive. The purchase will be made through the state bid process and will cost the county $31,926.59 fully equipped. The base price of the truck is $25,171, with the remainder of the cost coming from the installation of a camera and the grill strobe lighting.

The county, Glass told the court, will get a loan from the Bank of Prescott to buy the vehicle and pay it off in two years using money from the Act 1188 fund, which is money the county receives from the payment of fines. Glass said the county gets between $2,500 and $4,500 a month in this account. He added the three sport utility vehicles purchased for the NCSO last year will be paid off in August, also from this fund.

Cummings explained why the court needed to act fast and call a special meeting. This truck, he said, is the last 2016 in Arkansas under the state bid process and is being held at Landers Auto. Waiting and buying a 2017 model, he continued, would cost the county at least $5,000 more. Cummings said Landers also discounted this truck $2,500 below the state bid price to move it.

Glass said the county will get three checks from the bank loan. One will be to buy the truck. A second will be for the camera, and a third for the lights and other equipment. When the insurance check comes in, he told the court, it will be placed in the county general fund.

He told the court the Act 1188 fund is also used to pay for inmates’ medical expenses, instead of using money from the county general or sheriff’s budgets.

“This is a good bargain,” he said of the truck. He told the court the overall goal is for the NCSO to have nothing but SUVs and four-wheel drive trucks in its fleet in the future so the deputies can reach placed not possible in a car.

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