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One one hand all the complaints about regulation and regulatory capture in here are 200% valid. On the other hand JFC Chicago, get your shit together. Even if
by potato3732842 1y ago
One one hand all the complaints about regulation and regulatory capture in here are 200% valid.
On the other hand JFC Chicago, get your shit together. Even if you're dealing in un-obtainable old garbage it's not hard nor does it require OEM support to keep brakes working and suspension components remaining located under the vehicle. 30yr is a perfectly normal age for vehicles of this size and specialization in every industry that isn't fueled by a firehose of taxpayer monopoly bucks. You pass 30yo semi trucks every day on the highway. When it comes to dump trucks and other vocational trucks that are home every night they're frequently even older.
I get that to Karen who doesn't know any better that's "just what happens" to old vehicles and would reinforce the point that they're old but to anyone with the slightest shred of domain knowledge it speaks volumes about the fleet maintenance situation at Chicago fire.
- tptacek 1y agoPart of the problem here and across all municipal finance is that excepting megaprojects (building a new police HQ, refitting every single fire station with new trucks, that kind of thing), capex costs like these are just swamped by the opex costs and, in particular, payroll. How much work are you really going to put into saving <1% of the total municipal budget when you could instead be doing benefits management stuff that will pay out double digits over the next 10 years? I'm not saying you're wrong, just that it's a thing. (Before anyone says it: no, all these dumb capex things probably don't add up to that much relative to the total budget. But it would be easy to show I'm wrong, since all this data is public.)