Sanitary board approves Cummins generator maintenance contract with annual 2-hour load-bank tests

The Sanitary Board voted April 15 to accept a five-year maintenance agreement with Cummins covering the town's generators, including a new annual two-hour load-bank test to ensure units can meet full load in outages. Brandon, the sanitary superintendent, presented the revised contract and described two key changes: mobile generators will be inspected once with in-house maintenance thereafter, and all generators will receive an annual 2-hour load-bank test to exercise them at full capacity.

"These generators don't ever get that max load that they need," Brandon said, arguing the annual testing is necessary to confirm reliability during outages. Clay, a board member, flagged sections in the contract that place routine-operational responsibilities on the customer and pointed out a linked maintenance agreement (embedded by link in the vendor materials) that must be reviewed and saved as part of the record.

Board members discussed off-hour work costs and credit-card surcharges noted in the proposal; Clay recommended saving a static copy of the vendor's linked maintenance terms at the time of signing to prevent future unilateral changes. The board moved and seconded a motion to accept the contract and approved it by roll call.

The vote and the motion were recorded in the meeting minutes; the board asked staff to file the exact version of the maintenance proposal and the linked agreement before the contract is executed so the town's obligations and customer responsibilities are clear.

Next steps: staff will retain the contract and all linked exhibits in the permanent file, and Brandon will lead implementation and scheduling of the annual load-bank tests.