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Page 2 <br /> 2. ) Reduced personnel cost. The County would have no <br /> in-house maintenance facilities thereby requiring <br /> no mechanics, helpers, etc. <br /> Unfortunately the disadvantages far outweigh the advantages. <br /> We thought we understood the potential problem areas in <br /> contracting out maintenance services but after talking to <br /> entities with contracted facilities it was clear, we had only <br /> touched the tip of the iceberg! <br /> The following are factors identified as problem in the <br /> contracting arrangement: <br /> 1. ) Increased down-time on vehicles due to "waiting <br /> your turn" at the contractors garage. Contractors <br /> will take cash-paying customers before they take <br /> charge customers, because of the cash turn around. <br /> We felt that service would be better if the garage <br /> had a contract with the entity. However, Federal <br /> personnel who have a contracted maintenance <br /> program, could not agree with us on that point. <br /> With or without contract, they felt the contractor <br /> did not give the vehicle the same priority that an <br /> in-house mechanic would have. <br /> 2. ) Loss of staff time transporting vehicle to and from <br /> the various garages. Unless the employee was to <br /> wait on the vehicle not one, but two employees <br /> would be tied up moving each vehicle around. <br /> 3 . ) The County would experience a loss of priority <br /> setting and work scheduling. Since you are <br /> entirely at the mercy of the contractor you may not <br /> be able to depend on your vehicle being• where it is <br /> needed at the right time. <br /> 4. ) A primary complaint of the contract facility was <br /> that a contractor will only do work which is <br /> specifically authorized , ie. , he may notice a belt <br /> that is frayed and in danger of breaking when he is <br /> making the authorized repairs, but because you have <br /> not specifically told him to check and replace <br /> belts that service goes untouched. This ultimately <br /> increases the overall repair costs. <br /> Standard procedure in our garage would be to <br /> replace a frayed belt regardless of the problems <br /> they were to repair. <br /> 5. ) There is less control over the quality of parts <br /> used. You can indeed specify a brand or grade of <br /> repair part but in actuality that part may or may <br /> not be the one used. The monitoring process to <br /> insure quality parts were being used would be quite <br /> expensive. <br />