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The Troup County Board of Commissioners has approved a request from the Roads and Engineering Department to purchase a new work truck.

County Engineer James Emery worked with the purchasing director to procure a truck forthe use by the asphalt construction crew.

Emery explained during the morning work session that the department has been down at least one crew truck for quite some time because it’s very difficult to purchase trucks over the last few years.

Purchasing Director Diana Evans was able to work with a local GM dealer, Auto Gallery of LaGrange, to locate and negotiate the purchase of a 2024 Chevrolet Silverado 3500 work truck.

The truck itself costs $56,800, with a $14,535 service body including a 100-gallon fuel tank with pump (installed) $950 General Motors steps, as well as a Department of Transportation light package for $1,225 for a total of $73,510.

Purchase funds for the truck will come from countywide SPLOST funds.

“This truck is a 2024 model the state contract or 2024 models is not available. We cannot use state contracts for this. However, the local GM dealer has worked with our purchasing director several times to find the trucks that we’ve needed,” Emery said.

The county has purchased trucks in a similar manner in the past and the dealer has always beaten state contract pricing, Emery said.  He added that none of these types of trucks are available under state contract pricing. If the county were to use the state contract, it would have to wait until late summer when 2025 models are available, which could take more than a year for delivery.

Emery said the new trucks will have a heavier certified bed and be a dually with four rear tires.

“Historically we have used single rear wheel axles for our crew trucks. This will be the first time we’ve gone to a dually in the road department. We have always had to rely on our dump trucks and our road tractors and lowboys to haul all of our heavy equipment, including smaller heavy equipment, because the pickup trucks, an F-150, can’t do that,” Emery said.

Emery noted that the county did utilize F-250 single rear wheel trucks for many years and those are capable of towing small skid steer or mini excavators, but they cannot handle the fleet of heavy equipment that the county has now.

“Midsize excavators, we can’t tow on our crew trucks that we have now. We can tow it with this dually. This increases the towing capacity almost double over the F-250,” he said.