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 automatic purchase, and that each replacement would return to council for purchase approval and vendor selection.

Russo identified 13 vehicles proposed for replacement over the next five years across Streets, City Hall administration, Parks, Facilities and Water departments. Examples included a street sweeper (budgeted at $450,000 in fiscal 2029, with staff noting a potential grant match opportunity), pickup trucks with upfits ($75,000 estimates including tool beds), and mid-size SUVs for administrative use ($45,000). He said the city typically uses cooperative purchasing contracts and works to secure favorable fleet pricing.

The council questioned cost assumptions, upfit pricing and recordkeeping. Council members asked for mileage logs and more granular maintenance histories; Russo said mileage is recorded at fuel transactions and fuel reports provide monthly mileage estimates, and that detailed mileage and maintenance records would be provided after the session. He confirmed the city has one fleet mechanic who diagnoses vehicles and coordinates repairs with vendors and that surplus vehicles are disposed of via Sierra Auction under a state contract.

The session also included a separate, detailed presentation from the El Mirage Police Department on its 64-vehicle fleet. The police presenter said that many patrol vehicles are driven extensively and accrue high engine idle hours, a metric the department tracks in addition to driven miles. He explained that engine idle hours are significant for police vehicles because officers regularly leave cars running at crash scenes, traffic stops or while writing reports in the vehicle, and because K-9, DUI and other specialty vehicles require continuous climate control or equipment operation. The presenter said manufacturers and prior fleet studies convert engine idle hours into an equivalent mileage figure (for example, roughly 30–33 miles of wear per idle hour), and gave a specific example of a 2019 Chevy Tahoe with about 80,150 driven miles and 13,000 engine idle hours that, when converted, represented the equivalent of about 510,000 miles and generated roughly $21,900 in maintenance costs over a three-year look-back.

Police staff said the department uses those combined metrics—engine idle hours, driven miles and maintenance costs—to prioritize replacements, and that vehicle priorities can shift year to year based on new maintenance needs. They described efforts to monitor idle hours via vehicle telematics and a VectorCheck software tool and said some older vehicles require manual downloads of idle-hour data. The department noted that some enforcement vehicles were obtained through alternative funding and that proceeds from auctioned city vehicles return to the city’s budget.

Council members repeatedly emphasized that city vehicles are driven under different duty cycles than private vehicles—more heavy loads, off-road use, long idle times and specialized equipment—which increases maintenance needs. Several members asked for supplemental detail: specific mileage on vehicles proposed for replacement, a clearer breakdown of the last three years of repair costs per vehicle, and records of how the city has been pricing and purchasing upfits. Russo and police staff agreed to provide those details.

City Manager Dykes asked the council whether it supported continuing to use the current benchmarks (15 years or 150,000 miles) with staff discretion to accelerate replacements when maintenance or safety warrants. Multiple council members, including Council Member Dorsey and others, voiced agreement and the meeting record shows consensus to keep the benchmarks and the existing process while continuing to bring individual purchase approvals to council.

The work session ended with staff committing to supply more detailed mileage and maintenance records to council before formal purchase requests, and with council direction to retain the current benchmarks and staff discretion for prioritization. No formal purchase approvals or votes were taken at the session.