Rising fuel prices are having an impact on cities and towns, counties and at least one area school district and several are making adjustments.
Meeker Town Administrator Jeff Wilbourn said the rising cost of fuel “is absolutely having an impact on us. Police Chief Trent Norton is having his patrol units double up to save costs.”
He said Norton has asked and directed officers to restrict the number of miles they drive except for when they respond to emergencies.
Wilbourn noted regarding the Fire Department, “We can’t cut their fuel costs because there’s no extra driving. But their costs have gone up a lot.”
He thinks the police department budget will go up a little, not significantly, “because of the changes they’ve made.”
The town administrator said on the Public Works side, “We’re cutting back, no wasteful trips. We’re doubling up as much as we can on calls and trying to be as efficient as possible. We’re cutting down on the number of trips out to the lake each week.”
McLoud City Manager Buck Day mentioned, “Fuel costs have actually doubled, getting close to 2½ times what they were.
“We may have to cut down on the amount of police patrolling we do and in Public Works, too,” he said.
Day noted diesel prices have doubled. “We still have to fix the leaks and fix the roads. But the cost of road materials is also going up,” Day stated.
“About anything we have has gone up at least 20-30 percent all the way down to toilet paper,”
Day added.
“It impacts our services. We can’t provide the level of services our customers expect us to do. We’re in the service business and that impacts everything we do,” Day said.
Chandler City Manager James Melson stated, “Most of our fuel problems, as far as budget concerns, are in police, fire and ambulance. Those departments are rolling all hours of the day.
“Because gas and diesel fuel has almost doubled from a year ago, so has the fuel expenses for those departments. Our Public Works and Street Departments are in the same boat with the exception that they don’t drive as much.
“However, it can strain their budgets as well. It makes it tough to stay within the budget without taking money from other areas to fund fuel expenses,” he stressed.
District 3 Lincoln County Commissioner Lee Doolen pointed out, “we filled up right before the spike hit. But now, we’re going to have get another load of fuel.
“I cut my graders down to two-three days a week. We’ve worked on other things that don’t require moving equipment, more manual labor projects,” Doolen said.
“It will impact our operating expenses absolutely,” he stated, pointing to the rising fuel prices.
The commissioner explained that each of the three district commissioners does his own thing on getting fuel. “We do a minimum of three phone quotes and we choose the best price off of that.
“When we’re running full strength, 6,000 gallons of fuel will last us a little less than a month,” he pointed out.
Doolen was in the process of getting quotes for a new load of fuel last Monday.
He believes the rising cost of diesel “is really going to hurt. With these higher prices, it will cut down on some of our construction projects. Just be patient with us,” he asks the constituents.
Pottawatomie County District 1 Commissioner Melissa Dennis explained, “Every Monday we do bids on fuel. We usually get a break on diesel and gas prices,” she commented.
“We call and ask for fuel prices each Monday and have since 1992,” pointing to 30 years of the practice of doing it.
Dennis said a year ago commissioners were paying $1.94 a gallon for unleaded and $1.97 for diesel. “Today,” she noted, “We’re paying $3.70 for a gallon of unleaded and $3.80 for diesel. We get a discount because we are a government entity and we don’t pay other taxes that people do,” she said, emphasizing, “we do pay the taxes on fuel though.”
To compensate for the rising fuel costs, Dennis said, “I don’t allow any overtime anymore. We have to cut back on buying tin horns for the people, but we are installing them,” she stressed.
She said, “We can’t afford to have rock brought in to us, so we’re hauling it ourselves, skipping the costs of the surcharge. We’re taking longer to get things done. The patience of people is dropping,” she believes, “but the prices are rising. People are getting mean about it in some instances,” she stated.
“I also think it has a lot of do with social media and Facebook,” she added.
Marlin Miller, District 2 commissioner in Lincoln County, said to offset the spike in fuel prices, “Each grader is not going to run one day a week.”
Miller pointed to some special projects, like putting in tin hours, others that need manual labor like cleaning up bridge approaches, clearing up trees around stop signs.
“We’re continuing to make sure we have gravel on the roads and we’re running all the trucks to make sure we haul as much gravel as we can.”
Miller stated, too, “We get a load of fuel every two weeks. It will impact us tremendously,” he said.
Chandler School Supt. Melody Toma said, “I’ve noticed we’ve spent about $9,000 more than we did last fiscal year. But I don’t think we’ll see the real impact until next year on our budgets,” she added.
Toma pointed to the number of students riding school buses is down a little due to COVID. “I think the number of students riding buses next year may increase because of the higher fuel prices.”
Regarding the remainder of the current school year, Toma said, “We’re not doing anything different. We’re doing everything, all the activities, that we have planned to do,” she said.