Kneehill council votes 5–2 to keep the grader
Contracting out gravel maintenance looked cheaper on paper. The paper did not include March.
KNEEHILL COUNTY — Council voted 5–2 Tuesday to keep its own grader and operator for the northeast division rather than contract the work out, ending a debate that has run since the fall budget.
The contractor's bid came in $47,000 a year under the county's own cost. The case against it came from the operations superintendent, who kept his presentation to one slide: response times from the past three spring breakups, county crew against contracted crews in the two divisions that switched in 2021.
The county grader had roads open in an average of eleven hours after a storm. The contracted divisions averaged twenty-nine, because the contractor's machines start where the contractor's priorities are.
Council kept the machine. As one councillor put it before the vote: "Cheaper is a March word until it snows in March."
