Pulaski County has outsourced the lawn care and snow removal at certain county properties. The county commissioners voted Monday to hire TK Lawn Services for lawn care and Ditmire Lawn and Home Services for snow removal, at the recommendation of Maintenance Supervisor Jeff Johnston. “Both of these, when you figure them on a weekly basis, is less expensive than what we do it ourselves,” he explained. “The lawn care is significantly less. . . . These guys do this for a living, so they’re going to get it done a lot quicker. And that frees up the maintenance to do what we need to be doing.”
TK Lawn Services will charge the county $50 an hour for lawn care and $25 an hour for shrub and brush trimming, as well as edging. “Their hourly charge for, like, trimming and edging and that sort of thing was significantly less than the hourly charge the other ones charged,” Johnston said. “So we saved money there.”
For snow removal, the county will pay Ditmire $120 per hour for plowing, $70 per hour for snow blowing on sidewalks, steps, and building entrances, and 85 cents per pound for ice melt. “With his two plowing trucks and the fact that he charges less than the other bid that we had, we ended up saving a ton of money there,” Johnston told the commissioners. “And his two trucks actually saves time, so it cuts down on cost, also.”
Johnston said there is money for lawn care included in his budget, but he plans to meet with the county council next week, to make sure there’s enough to cover all the costs.
