By Kristin Rover
Sun staff

Clermont County Commissioners have approved spending approximately $2,981,000 on new vehicles in the county this year.

Sukie Scheetz, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the money will be used to purchase 47 vehicles in the county that range from dump trucks for the engineer’s office to busses for Clermont Transportation Connection.

Scheetz said the cost breaks down to about $1 million being used from county funds and the rest will come from other funds, including CTC.

She said grants will cover $1.6-$1.7 million of the costs.

“Clermont Transportation Connection is waiting for grant money,” Scheetz said.

Scheetz said the bulk of the vehicles and cost coming from the general fund will be the sheriff’s office and engineer’s office.

“Those are mostly sheriff’s vehicles,” Scheetz said about the 47 vehicles.

Scheetz said they saved some money last year by adding a bar attachment to the front of sheriff’s vehicles to prevent damages from deer collisions or other accidents.

“That was a good purchase,” Scheetz said.

Scheetz said the engineer’s office will be getting six vehicles including dump trucks.

Scheetz said other offices are in need of vehicles as well. The Department of Water Resources will be getting five vehicles, and Juvenile Court will be getting six vehicles.

All in all, Scheetz said replacing 47 vehicles is only a small percentage of the county’s total fleet.

“This is only 12 percent of the fleet we have,” Scheetz said. “We have 383 vehicles in the fleet.”