The City of Rochelle’s Public Works Department has seen a milder-than-usual winter so far this year, its director, Tim Isley said Jan. 17.
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ROCHELLE — The City of Rochelle’s Public Works Department has seen a milder-than-usual winter so far this year, its director, Tim Isley said Jan. 17.
As of Jan. 17, the city’s public works crews had been out seven times salting and had plowed snow one time. Isley said a milder winter helps with costs including overtime hours, salt and brine expenses, fuel costs, and wear and tear on plow trucks.
“For a normal storm where we're out all day, we'd probably go through three quarters of a tank of fuel, which is probably 50 gallons per truck,” Isley said. “And then you're looking at up to 16 hours of work. I try not to run our operators over that because we only have so many and they need rest. Salt is $82 per ton. Our smaller single-axle trucks hold eight tons. There's a good $500-600 in the back of a truck every time we're going down the road salting. And we're just throwing that on the ground. But that's what we have to do to keep the public safe.”
The City of Rochelle maintains about 80 miles of road (160 lane miles), eight miles of alleys, 15 parking lots, and the Rochelle Municipal Airport. After a snowfall, it takes the public works department about seven hours to complete a plowing run. The department currently has 10 operators and hopes to hire an additional two soon, Isley said.
The addition of staff will cut down on the time it takes the city to get a snowstorm cleaned up.
“You never know what you're going to get with a storm,” Isley said. “There are so many variables that change. Wind is a huge factor in a storm just because you have blowing and drifting that could continue for a couple of days. That requires you to go out and salt. Temperature is a big thing. There's a lot that goes into how you approach a storm.”
Public works crews wash their trucks after each snowstorm and salting. Isley said the department’s dump trucks and snow plow trucks have “a rough life” with being out in the elements, spreading salt that can be corrosive, and working at construction sites.
City Manager Jeff Fiegenschuh praised Isley for his management of the public works department’s fleet. The city currently has a rotation where it replaces two old trucks with new trucks every 4-5 years. Isley also worked to navigate pandemic supply chain impacts and bought used trucks when new ones were tough to get and the department was in need of them.
The trucks are replaced due to needed repairs being cost prohibitive. Trucks can cost $250,000-300,000 a piece and go up in price on average about five percent each year. The city has its rotation schedule built into its long-term budget.
“You're looking at that expense and emissions requirements are always changing,” Isley said. “I believe a new emissions standard goes into effect in 2027 and they're expecting that to raise the costs of engines in vehicles $10,000-20,000. That's something else you have to look at, if we could get ahead of that next emissions deadline we could save ourselves some money.”
Isley said after working through replacing five retirees in recent years, the public works department is currently fully staffed. The two upcoming additional employees will be the first expansion in the department in 22 years.
The two staff members are being added because the city would like to do more construction projects in-house to save money and time on contractors, Fiegenschuh said.
“I'm very proud of the fact that we've gotten the public works department fully staffed and that we're adding two more people,” Fiegenschuh said. “When we have a water main break and the water department is out fixing it, our operators in public works can do the street maintenance instead of having a contractor do it. We can do it at a lower cost and we'll have those additional two people there all the time for other projects like snow removal. Our operators do a lot of mowing. There's a lot of places that operators are mowing that you don't see unless you're out there. It's not just roads and alleys. It's right of ways and city properties and the airport.”
Isley said the staff expansion will cut down on response time for more urgent public works tasks, including snowstorms.
“Having two more operators is really going to be beneficial to us,” Isley said. “Say we are working a multiple-day storm and our guys have to be working for 16 hours and it's still snowing and blowing. Having the extra manpower will allow us to let some people go home and get some rest for a few hours and then switch after they're back. Right now in a situation like that with our current staffing it'd be hard to keep up.”