Lauderdale County Road Department considers new plan for heavy work trucks

MERIDIAN, Miss. (WTOK) - The Lauderdale County Road Department is looking into a new way to keep equipment costs down, while making equipment last longer.

This new plan was brought up at a recent Board of Supervisors meeting.

The plan sees the Road Department purchasing new dump trucks and heavy work trucks every few years, then auctioning them off to fund new vehicles.

When the trucks go to auction, the money from the sale goes to fund another set of trucks.

Lauderdale County Road Manager Rush Mayatt says this plan already works for other counties in Mississippi and Alabama, and it could work for Lauderdale too, if it were made to fit the county’s needs.

“There’s been counties that have gotten into this program that have bought into it and actually made money off of this, then they can use that for however they desire within their department,” said Mayatt.

“Most counties that have taken advantage of this system have gotten on the one-year rollout program. That doesn’t really fit Lauderdale County, just a lot of hoops to jump through, a lot of excessive procurement things, but the two-year mark is our kind of sweet spot and it still seems to be effective.”

Mayatt went on to say this plan would save money on maintenance costs by purchasing new vehicles and not working existing equipment to failure.