City of Sedalia to Purchase New Roller Compactor

The City of Sedalia will purchase a new roller compactor after the old one broke down a month before the maintenance season ended earlier this year.

City Administrator Kelvin Shaw explained how the funds became available to buy a new one at Monday night's City Council meeting.

“We have a budgeted line item for the maintenance and improvements of the streets, and that's primarily used for materials, and then we also contract some of that out. One of the pieces of the equipment that we use is a roller compactor,” Shaw said, adding that it's cheaper to do overlays in-house, and the roller compactor is an essential piece of equipment.

When the old roller compactor broke down, the cost estimate to fix it was $24,000. A new costs $60,000. And it just so happened that the related budget line items for road work materials came in under budget this year by $73,973.97. This will allow the City to redirect $60,000 to purchase a new roller to be ready for next season.

“So we're just transferring money to be able to buy that piece of equipment instead of paying for materials, since we were under budget,” Shaw said.

Also, plans called for the purchase of a one-ton truck with a snow plow attachment and a sand/salt spreader next fiscal year. The remaining under-budget funds will now allow this $13,000 purchase to be made ahead of schedule, Shaw explained.