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Board approves purchase of 2026 motor grader for secondary roads
Summary
Supervisors approved the purchase of a 2026 motor grader (CAT 140) and a trade-in of an older grader after the county engineer explained the purchase price, trade-in, and fleet-hour rationale to keep primary fleet hours below thresholds.
The Winnebago County Board approved the secondary roads department’s request to purchase a 2026 CAT 140 motor grader and trade in an older grader.
County engineer Scott Meiners presented the recommendation and described the transaction: the purchase price for the new 2026 CAT 140 was listed at $453,318.64 with a trade allowance on the outgoing unit of roughly $60,200, yielding a net transaction of about $393,118.64. Meiners said the purchase will move one high-hour machine out of the primary full-time fleet and help keep the first seven full-season machines under approximately 10,000 hours.
Committee member (Speaker 5) moved to approve trading a 2001 CAT road grader for a 2026 CAT 140; a second was recorded and the board voted to approve the purchase. Members discussed the tradeoffs of buying new versus rebuilding older machines and the insurance and replacement considerations for costly equipment.
Why this matters: Replacing aging fleet machines reduces risk of winter‑season failures and can lower long-term maintenance and operational disruptions. The engineer said recent maintenance losses and component failures on high-hour machines influenced the recommendation.
Next steps: Staff to complete the trade paperwork and move the replaced machine to standby inventory or arrange disposal as appropriate.
