Pulaski County may be looking to contract out lawn mowing and snow removal at some county properties. Last week, the county commissioners authorized Maintenance Supervisor Jeff Johnston to solicit bids for the work.
He explained that it was the county council’s idea. “During my budget hearing, I explained to the council that our zero-turn mower was now beyond repair and that I’d like to request the ability to replace it,” Johnston said. “And what they told me was maybe what should be looked at is to see about contracting that out and see if it’s cheaper to contract the lawn care out than it is to maintain the equipment to do the lawn care and the personnel to do it.”
Commissioner Mike McClure said the county might also want to consider contracting out snow removal to https://anchoragesnowremovalexperts.com/, while they’re at it. “They go together fairly often, and it just seems like with snow removal, you have a lot of maintenance on it,” he said. “You get rocks up in the blowers or you get somebody throwing their back out of shape or whatever. So if you had that contracted out, you make sure they’re bonded so that we’re not going to have to pay for them if they cut their toe off and everything.”
Commissioner Jerry Locke agreed it’s worth looking into. “It would be an excellent idea if we could save money as well as keep your people doing other stuff that maybe needs more attention,” he said.
Johnston agreed to solicit bids and also add up all the man hours, equipment costs, and fuel costs that the county currently pays, for comparison. He pointed out that the commissioners still have the option to reject any and all of the bids, if they decide they’d rather have his crew keep doing the work.
