Lease is more as Hillsboro replaces city vehicles
Staff writer
Hillsboro is six months into a program that has seen it sell off 22 city vehicles and lease new vehicles as replacements.
Police chief Jessey Hiebert, whose department received four 2025 Ford Explorers on Monday, said city departments were pleased with the program, and unsentimental about scrapping old cars.
“Won’t miss anything about them,” Hiebert said. “And I guarantee you, the guys, when they fall into a new Explorer, none of them will miss anything about their old ones either.”
The program began this spring, city administrator Matt Stiles said.
“We had so many vehicles that we had to replace, and we couldn’t really afford to replace them all at once and buy them outright,” Stiles said.
The solution was to lease the cars from the rental company Enterprise.
The cars are exclusively Chevys or Fords so Enterprise can ship them to either of the two dealerships in Hillsboro.
It was not a move without precedent, Stiles said. Salina and Lindsborg had experimented with similar programs in the past.
“A lot of places are starting to get into it because it’s probably the most affordable way that you can manage your fleet,” he said.
The city will switch out the leased cars every three or five years.
“The plan is to rotate them through so that they’re never out of warranty,” Stiles said.
How much the city will pay Enterprise every cycle will depend on the rental market.
“We’re not going to know how it’s going to work [until] we turn them back in,” Hiebert said. “Does it cost the taxpayers? Until it happens, no one’s going to know the answer.”
Stiles and Mayor Lou Thurston each posited that the leasing program would save the city money in the long term.
Thurston said a financial analysis indicated leasing would be “cost-neutral, even a bit cost-favorable.”
It certainly has been popular with city workers.
“It’s nice to get everyone in the same vehicle — same model year, same safety equipment,” Hiebert said. “That has not been the case my entire career.”
The city previously bought police cars on a case-by-case basis.
“We’re still using a 2013 Taurus as our part-time unit,” Hiebert said. “That guy’s been on the road 11 years. That doesn’t seem like a lot, but when it comes to a car driving the city streets, the wear and tear on the suspension and everything, it gets pretty worn out.”
Hiebert is excited the cars will be under warranty. He had to replace water pumps in two department cars earlier this year at a cost of $2,500 each.
“That’s something we won’t be experiencing with these, because we won’t have them long enough to wear them out,” he said.
The 2025 Explorers have technological upgrades that Hiebert called “tremendous.”
He highlighted a perimeter management system that alerts an officer if someone is approaching the car as well as 360-degree cameras and a braking assist.
Other departments needed vehicular upgrades more than the police, according to Hiebert.
“Street and Water would definitely be the ones that would have needed vehicles the worst,” he said. “They had trucks that should have just been parked under a tree somewhere.”
The city has begun to auction off replaced work trucks and pickups using the website AuctionTime.
“We’ve had people from all over the country buy stuff from us,” Stiles said.
Three old pursuit vehicles, which could not be auctioned without being decommissioned, have been sold to the county sheriff’s office.
“The sheriff’s department right now is in desperate need of vehicles because they’re having issues with their Dodge Durangos, and they’ve had some deer hits,” Hiebert said. “We gave them a good deal.”
Fire chief Ben Steketee’s truck is the only vehicle that has yet to be replaced under the program.
Steketee said he liked the idea of the leasing program, which he thinks will save the city money in the long run.
He remained neutral about his specific pickup, a half-ton Chevy Silverado with more than 100,000 miles, being replaced.
“It’s good to get a new truck, but the old truck I had was a good truck,” he said.
He plans to sell the Silverado to the Goessel Fire Department after the new one arrives, which he expects will be in two months.
Hiebert said the new equipment had a positive impact on morale.
“It changes the whole attitude of a worker,” he said. “When you give them good equipment, they’ll tend to take care of the equipment, because it’s nice, and they’re proud to be in it.”