El Mirage council reviews vehicle-replacement procedures; affirms existing benchmarks

El Mirage council members heard a work-session briefing July 1 on the city’s vehicle replacement procedures and agreed to continue using the existing 15-year or 150,000-mile guideline while allowing staff discretion based on condition and costs.

City Manager Crystal Dykes introduced the session and turned the presentation over to Public Works staff member Nick Russo, who described the city’s fleet-management approach for all departments except police and fire. Russo said the Fleet Division maintains records for about 70 vehicles and pieces of equipment, providing preventative maintenance tracking, repair coordination with local vendors, and budget planning support. He said recommendations for replacement rely on a mix of qualitative factors—typical service life, departmental need and technological obsolescence—and quantitative measures, including a depreciation-style formula based on miles driven and the IRS mileage reimbursement rate cited from 2019.

Russo compared a 2019 Ford F-150 and a 2019 Vactor sewer-cleaning unit to illustrate differences in service life and economic value. He said the F-150’s useful life, in that example, was roughly 10 years based on mileage and usage assumptions, whereas a Vactor is expected to last decades. He emphasized that placement on the replacement schedule is a recommendation, not an…