Sikeston City Council OKs DPS vehicle purchases

SIKESTON — Sikeston City Council approved the surplus of two Sikeston Department of Public Safety vehicles during its meeting Monday, June 24 at City Hall.

According to Capt. Ryan Smith with Sikeston Department of Public Safety, the two surplus vehicles are both 2018 Ford F150 units and will be traded for newer vehicles.

Smith said certain vehicles in the city’s inventory, due to their age or state of repair, are no longer adequate for the city’s day-to-day operations.

Smith then introduced the purchase of two new 2024 Ford F150 trucks, for which the council approved the purchase.

“The Department of Public Safety requests the purchase of two 2024 F150 trucks from Joe Machens Ford Lincoln at the price of $102,898 and use the remaining budget of the FY2025 dollars to outfit it with necessary equipment,” Smith said. 

According to Smith, the DPS’ FY2025 budget includes funds for the car and the necessary equipment to outfit it. 

“We are also seeking approval to take the surplussed 2018 F150’s and trade them to Joe Machens Ford as part of the purchase for the two replacement trucks,” Smith said. “Machens Ford is the state-approved vendor for Ford vehicles and they authorized a trade amount of $21,000— $10,000 on one of the trucks and $11,000 on another, which is a fair offer, bringing the total price to $81,898.”

Council also approved the purchase of two 2024 Dodge Durangos from Landmark Dodge for $85,964 and the use of the remaining funds to outfit them with the equipment specified in the FY2025 budget.

Smith said the cars will be assigned to their frontline patrol fleet and will also replace vehicles that will be surplussed soon.

Also at the meeting, the city council approved Sikeston DPS’s continued service with Motorola in relation to the body-worn camera program.

“Currently and since 2017, we have used Motorola for our body cam vendor,” Smith said. “Initially, we had a five-year contract with them and the contract expired.”

Smith said the Sikeston DPS uses 32 body-worn cameras to outfit all uniformed patrol officers assigned to patrol divisions. 

“We have had no issues with the equipment that Motorola has supplied since 2017 or the software associated for downloading/reviewing the recordings,” Smith said. “This is just a continuation of what we are already doing.”

The new service would be a five-year plan to ensure officers have the latest hardware and that it is fully warranted.

Smith said the first year of the contract includes some additional accessories for the new cameras, which will cost $23,231.

“Then the remaining four years will each be billed at the cost of $19,711 for a grand total of $102,075,” Smith said.

Smith added they are budgeted items and the cost comes in under budget.

On Monday night, council heard a bill’s first reading. The bill creates a new economic development incentive rate to entice a new industry or promote the growth of an existing one.

Rick Landers with the Sikeston Board of Municipal Utilities said the economic development incentive rate expired on Dec. 31, 2023. 

Landers said on June 11, 2024, the BMU Board approved a new economic development incentive rate and will seek the council’s approval of the bill at the July 29 meeting.