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Four Del Norte County supervisors favored leasing 14 vehicles rather than purchasing them for the Department of Health and Human Services.

District 4 Supervisor Joey Borges, pointing out that the county will incur an annual $100,000 expense for five years, asked why Del Norte can’t just buy the vehicles the department needs.

“I don’t agree with renting vehicles,” he said Tuesday. “Going down the line if funding gets cut or if something gets questioned, we have to decide between providing services or renting (these) cars. If we move forward with this, my understanding is we would liquidate the cars we have. So there’s a chance if the funding runs out and we can’t continue the payments to the lease company, then we have to scramble to try to buy 20 new cars or 12 or 14, whatever number it is.”

Borges pulled the item off the consent agenda and voted against it.

The county’s lease agreement through Enterprise Fleet Management is for 12 2023 Nissan Altimas and two Nissan Rogues for a total projected monthly cost of $8,994.74. DHHS would use these vehicles and the funding to pay for that lease agreement would come from state and federal dollars, according to the county’s staff report.

Enterprise Fleet Management recommended DHHS replace 27 vehicles out of its fleet of 46, Director Ranell Brown said. Much of that recommendation is based on age. The oldest vehicle is a 1999 Ford Taurus that has mold growing in it and “is not safe to drive out of town,” Brown told supervisors.

This discussion began with former DHHS director Heather Snow and former county administrative officer Jay Sarina, according to the county's staff report.

“Sometimes our funding is limited to buy fixed assets, some of the discussion was a lease may be more appropriate,” Brown said. “Out of that 46 vehicles, 25 was older than 10 years and this concept of leasing the vehicles was brought forward as a way to provide newer more reliable cars to the county not just DHHS. DHHS is the first to move forward with this lease agreement and making this request.”

According to Brown, DHHS typically has a line item in its budget for the purchase of two vehicles, which equates to about $100,000 — equivalent to the lease amount. After the five year period of the agreement, any value left on the car can be put into a new lease, she said.

The Board of Supervisors on Jan. 24 approved several master agreements between the county and Enterprise Fleet Management to lease vehicles in lieu of purchasing them back. Board members were interested in looking for an alternative to buying vehicles because many times departments don’t have the funds, County Administrative Officer Neal Lopez said Tuesday.

Because DHHS relies on state and federal dollars, the funding for the leasing of those vehicles is available, more so than in departments under the county’s general fund, Lopez said.

“They typically budget for about two vehicles a year, so we tried to keep the lease payment at the same amount,” he said.

The availability of vehicles has also played a part in developing the master agreement with Enterprise, Lopez said. He noted that the budget for the sheriff’s office has called for the purchase of new vehicles for three years and they were finally able to provide them.

According to Anthony Emlen, an Enterprise representative, there is no mileage penalty on the vehicle once the lease runs out. If the mileage is low, there’s an option to continue using that vehicle. If its mileage is high, there’s an option to replace it, he said.

Preventative maintenance and repairs will also be covered under the lease agreement, according to Emlen.

"We would provide consult and replacement recommendations based off of vehicle availability, safety, fuel economy, maintenance, warranties and also their market position," Emlen said. "Making sure you're taking advantage of the resale market. Regardless some vehicles go a little bit higher or a little bit lower that's in our ongoing evaluation of the fleet as a fleet management provider."

District 5 Supervisor Dean Wilson said he initially voted no on the lease agreements with Enterprise, noting that he would focus lease agreements on cars that get a lot of daily use. The vehicles DHHS uses often sit in a lot for weeks before they get assigned to someone, Wilson said.

“They’ve been in the fleet for five or six years, but they have very low mileage,” he said. “Those aren’t the ones I would seek putting on a lease-type of arrangement because we’ll be paying for cars sitting unused in your lots. If leases are going to be done, they should be on vehicles that are in fairly good use or are being utilized enough where to makes economic sense.”

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