County buys Cherokees for $8,400 each

By CHARLES W. JOHNSON / News Editor for the Southern Standard

County Executive Kenneth Rogers is pictured with one of the four surplus used Jeep Cherokees the county purchased from the state. (Charles W. Johnson photo)

A tip from chief investigator Herb Rowland led to a major bargain for the county when he advised County Executive Kenneth Rogers of four government surplus Jeep Cherokees available for sale at a very reasonable price.

Rogers contacted the state and purchased all four vehicles for $33,600, or an average price of $8,400 each. One of the vehicles will go to the local Emergency Management Agency and the other three will be utilized by the sheriff’s department, according to Rogers.

The SUVs are used vehicles with model years varying from 1999 to 2001, and mileage ranging from approximately 40,000 to 60,000. Since the county already has several Jeep Cherokees on the road, Rogers felt the vehicles would be a good fit for the current fleet in that buying the same make and model vehicles will allow some equipment on older vehicles to be moved to the newer ones, and make it easier to standardize equipment within the fleet.

Money was available in the local EMA budget to fund the purchase. All that was required was to transfer the funds under the auspices of the Budget and Finance Committee, which voted unanimously to make the transfer at a recent meeting.

“It’s a deal we can’t really pass up,” said committee chairman George Smartt.

Rogers said in the incoming budget the EMA will be reimbursed for the vehicles slated for the sheriff’s department.

Rogers said he talked to Sheriff Jackie Matheny and he agreed the vehicles would be a smart purchase and would provide relatively inexpensive replacements for older sheriff’s vehicles which are becoming increasingly more costly to maintain. Rogers also said the move should allow the sheriff’s department to retire and sell some of its older vehicles and funnel that money back into county coffers, but still maintain its current fleet size.

Rogers estimates similar vehicles would have cost the county around $18,000 to $20,000 new.

“This is going to help us cut down on maintenance,” Rogers said, “and we’re going to be able to have better vehicles out there on the road.”