While consumers are holding off making big purchases and new cars are sitting on dealers' lots, Lancaster City officials recently went on a buying spree.

The city last month purchased 22 new Chevrolet Cobalts in a long-planned move to put housing inspectors into city vehicles and to replace old, high-maintenance cars.

The city spent $306,000 from a capital improvement bond for the vehicles. By piggy-backing on a state purchasing contract, the city got the cars for $13,921 each, saving $2,409 from the listed price, said Patrick Hopkins, the city's administrative services department director.

Half of the new cars are for city inspectors, who had been driving their personal vehicles.

The switch is intended as both a cost-cutting move and an image enhancement for the inspectors, said Hopkins.

It comes from a recommendation of Management Partners, a consultant that studied city government operations in 2007.

Management Partners said the new vehicles will pay for themselves over the 15-year life of the cars and the mileage paid to inspectors to use their private vehicles, said Mayor Rick Gray.

"It was surprising the amount of miles they drove in the city," Gray said.

Some of the eight housing inspectors and their supervisor have been driving up to 250 miles a month.

The city budgeted nearly $13,500 for mileage for those eight inspectors last year. Only $500 is budgeted for gas for their new vehicles this year, said Randy Patterson, director of the economic development and neighborhood revitalization department that oversees the inspectors.

The four-door white sedans are four-cylinder models that are expected to get 30 miles to the gallon of gasoline.

The cars will be paid off within seven years — the shortest term of the bundle of $125 million in bonds the city sold in 2007 to fund new water treatment plants and other city projects, Hopkins said.

That lifespan is significantly longer than for city police cars, which need to be replaced about every five years, he said.

The consultants' recommendation was also intended to have the inspectors look more professional.

"There is a visual difference in having an employee in uniform getting out of a city car," said Hopkins, saying that inspectors will look more official and the vehicles will make them more visible in city neighborhoods.

To that end, the city is also spending $3,700 to provide uniform shirts, pants and jackets for the eight housing inspectors and their supervisor, Patterson said.

The remaining 11 cars purchased will replace older cars, such as a late 1980s car used by the city zoning officer. The city has kept copious maintenance records showing how much it is costing to repair its vehicles. Those records were used to decide which vehicles to replace, said Hopkins.

The city is housing the vehicles in the Water Street Garage. The cost of the eight additional leased slots the fleet will require will be $5,280, said Pat Brogan, Gray's chief of staff.


Staff writer Bernard Harris can be reached at bharris@LNPnews.com or 481-6022.