The public works street sweeper with information including price

As the City of Perry considers their budget for the 2020 fiscal year, the department with the largest hit on the ledger is once again public works.

One of the biggest reasons for that is the purchase of a $300,000 street sweeper. Deputy Public Works Director Josh Wuebker says their current sweeper is around 17-years-old and it costs a lot of money to operate and maintain it. The new sweeper will be paid through the stormwater fund, and it’s something Wuebker says will be a big help. “It’s a very valuable piece of machinery. You know you can imagine what the town would look like if it wasn’t swept, with the leaves and the garbage and stuff like that. So that’s something that we’ve been wanting to do for probably five years, and finally this year we were able to pull that off and get it. So yeah, that’s probably our biggest thing, and we have a few other smaller things. But other than that, that’s going to be the big piece of equipment this year.”

Wuebker says they should be receiving the new street sweeper in either June or July. Another purchase he’s excited about is a new “hot box,” which will make transporting hot asphalt from Des Moines to Perry more effective. The public works budget will be considered for approval, along with the rest of the City budget, during a public hearing at the next City Council meeting on March 4th. To learn more about the Perry Public Works Department, listen to yesterday’s Perry Fareway Let’s Talk Dallas County program at RaccoonValleyRadio.com.