By Charles Romans
Carter County Times
The Carter County Fiscal Court held a special meeting Monday night to discuss problems with county road equipment and to hear quarterly reports from county departments.
The county equipment in question was a road grader that was experiencing multiple malfunctions necessitating repairs. The court discussed the possibility of replacing the grader with either a new or used piece of equipment during the regularly scheduled January meeting, but agreed to postpone any decision until a mechanic’s report had been submitted and the magistrates had ample time to go over the information. Carter County judge executive Brandon Burton provided the court with the information that had been gathered since the regular January meeting.
Burton told the court that he had discussed the malfunctioning grader with the mechanic who was still troubleshooting to determine the exact problem. One problem was that there were leaking hydraulic hoses. The grader was also leaking transmission fluid in the same manner it had previously, and there was air in the lines causing further problems.
“That is all I know about it so far,” Burton told the court. “We had discussed maybe buying one, but I will leave that up to the court. But if we do decide to buy one, we are probably looking at sometime in March for delivery. And we also discussed putting out bids to buy a used grader.”
“Jason (Carroll, road department supervisor) and I looked around and have found a used one,” Burton continued. “It’s a Challenger, it was Greenup County State Garage’s, and it has about 3,900 hours on it. It’s a two-wheel drive like our old one, but the hours are good on it and it’s a pretty solid old grader.”
“We can get some other bids on a used grader if you want to go that route. But I don’t want to get caught without one,” Burton stressed to the court. “We need something, and we are going to have to improve that equipment if we are going to keep having trouble with that grader.”
The grader being worked on currently is the newest grader with only about 7,000 hours on it, Burton said. The repairs to it so far have totaled approximately $50,000, but the transmission work currently being done is warranty work that does not cost the county anything. The transmission, however, is not the only part of the grader requiring repairs.
“We even checked on the price of leasing a grader,” Burton told the court. “But the lowest interest rate would be five percent.”
Should the county decide they want to purchase a new grader, Burton told the court, the county’s old grader could be sold and those funds applied to the purchase of the new equipment. Burton said that they were offered $60,000 for it as a trade in, but he believes selling it outright would yield a higher price. The purchase price of a new replacement road grader would be approximately $322,000 at state contract price.
The need for the grader to be operational was pointed out by not only Burton, but also by several of the magistrates. The snow from the recent winter storms might be melting, but the cleanup will go far into the spring and a properly functioning grader will be needed for that and the potential damage that comes with seasonal spring rains.
The court did not vote for the purchase of a new grader, but voted to take bids on used graders. Those bids can be submitted until February 10, 2025, and will be discussed in the February scheduled meeting.
In other business the court voted to accept the Sheriff’s quarterly report, the Clerk’s quarterly report, and the Clerk’s 2024 Settlement. The court also voted to authorize Marilee Fugitt as Couty Applicant Agent.
Contact the writer at charles@cartercountytimes.com
