Page County board moves forward on motor grader purchases

Feb 20, 2024

Page County Courthouse

(Clarinda) -- After considerable discussion, Page County officials are moving forward with purchasing two new motor graders.

Meeting in regular session Thursday night, the Page County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved purchasing one Caterpillar motor grader through Ziegler CAT and a John Deere model through Murphy Tractor for just over $716,000. The action came after revisiting proposals from the two companies, which included two Caterpillar models through Ziegler CAT for roughly $715,600 and two John Deere models from Murphy Tractor for more than $729,300. Supervisors Chair Jacob Holmes initially threw out the idea of purchasing one of each after noting the cost would be roughly the same as CAT's low bid.

"If you look at your paper there and take machine one from (John) Deere and machine one from CAT, the total of those two together with the trades is $716,666," said Holmes. "So, it would only be about $1,000 higher to buy one of each--that's just another scenario."

Funding allocated under the county's fiscal 2024 budget for new equipment would cover the motor grader purchases. Before the meeting, the board had a walk-around of both proposed equipment models, and County Engineer J.D. King's recommendation was still the two Caterpillar models. The board had started to indicate they would like to purchase the Caterpillars until Patrick Teagan from Ziegler CAT, who was present at the meeting, offered a guaranteed buyback on the machines if the board bought both Caterpillars--which was not included in the original sealed bid. However, Brian Bremer with Murphy Tractor cautioned the board from considering the additional offer.

"I believe if you were to consult with the county attorney, he would advise you that it would be illegal to accept that tonight because this has been sealed bids that were opened last week and in essence, your allowing him to change his bid," said Bremer. "You guys have always been a long time CAT operator and I understand that, but for $1,000 difference, you'd get to try the new technology."

Due to legality concerns over whether they could accept the Ziegler CAT bid, Holmes suggested rejecting both proposals and allowing the companies to start over the bidding process due to the buyback offer "muddying" the two companies' proposals. He also noted prices could go up or down if they re-bid the purchase. However, Supervisor Judy Clark advised against re-bidding because the companies' numbers are publicly available to each other or other potential bidders.

"Once you open bids everybody knows what (the numbers) are," said Clark. "I understand what you're saying but they're still out there and (bidders) can undercut and what not--that's just not good business. It's not the way county government operates."

A motion to reject the bids failed 0-3. While it may not have been the first choice, Supervisor Todd Maher says purchasing one of each would also allow them to compare the two machines and find their preference before the next round of motor grader purchases.

"To see if the service is better, are we doing less maintenance, are we getting better fuel mileage, are we getting all these benefits that the salesman portrayed to us--is that paying off," said Maher. "Because, really it boils down to the taxpayer and are we going to get money in the long run out of that versus saving up front and then paying for it on the back end with much more service issues or things like that."

Maher and Holmes added they had heard good things about the John Deere model from secondary roads employees in Fremont and Montgomery counties. However, Maher also acknowledged it might take time for the road grader operators to get used to the new machine.

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