Fergus Falls cutting fuel consumption

By Lauren Radomski (Contact) | The Daily Journal

Published Thursday, September 11, 2008

With the cost of fuel a growing part of the city’s budget, Fergus Falls staff are working on ways to reduce consumption on a daily basis.

The city has allocated an additional $75,000 for fuel costs in 2009, part of an annual budget that will total $46.3 million. The effort to reduce fuel consumption, said Finance Director Bill Sonmor, includes several small ways to utilize vehicles as wisely as possible.

“We’re looking at reducing our travel without reducing the services we provide to the public,” said Rick Terway, Parks, Recreation and Forestry manager.

For Parks and Recreation, that may mean creating a storage spot for tools at DeLagoon Park so workers don’t have to travel to the park and back into town as often. Another option is mowing selected city ditches less than others, Terway said.

The use of some city vehicles has already changed. The street sweeper, for example, was out on Fergus Falls roads less this summer, said Fleet and Facilities Manager Russ Bye, and refuse truck routes have been re-defined to cut back on any overlap.

Much of the effort to reduce fuel costs simply relies on common sense, Bye said, like turning vehicles off when they’re not in use.

“We’ve had a no-idle policy for sometime,” Bye said. “That’s one thing we can really control.”

Other factors are more difficult. Vehicles like loaders and graders just aren’t fuel-efficient, Bye said, and when it snows during the winter months — and sometimes into the spring — there’s no choice but to send out the plows.

“We are seeing some numbers go down,” Bye said of fuel costs, “but it all depends on what’s going on...The numbers are pretty decent, but there aren’t a lot of big projects going on now like there were earlier this summer.”

The Fergus Falls Police Department has also experienced lower fuel costs, though Chief of Public Safety Tim Brennan said it’s hard to know how much of the change is due to efforts by staff and how much is the result of falling gas prices. In any case, the most recent assessment of monthly fuel costs was down $1,000 from the previous month.

Police officers have also worked to reduce idling vehicles, though sometimes cars need to stay on to keep computers up and running. Officers have started doubling-up in cars during a shift overlap in the afternoons, Brennan said, and some practice “stationary patrol” — parking in the neighborhoods or traffic areas where they receive many of their calls.