Sheriff’s office to purchase 3 new Durango vehicles
The Holmes County Sheriff’s Department will add a trio of new 2025 Dodge Durangos to its fleet. The vehicles are specially made to suit the needs of law enforcement.
While protecting and serving the community is a major commitment for the Holmes County Sheriff’s Office, there are certain expenses that accompany doing so, and one of those expenses was put in front of the Holmes County Commissioners on Monday, May 5 in the Old Jail meeting room in Millersburg.
Richard Haun, sheriff deputy, met with the commissioners to discuss the purchase of three new vehicles in the ongoing effort to keep their fleet of vehicles up to date so the department can continue to do its work in the community.
The commissioners quickly agreed to have the county purchase the three vehicles.
Haun said the department is seeking to purchase three 2025 Dodge Durango pursuit vehicles from Sarchione Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram in Dalton, from where they have purchased vehicles prior to this.
“We normally try to do this later in the year, but with the vehicle situation and shortages in ordering windows, it’s a little hard for us to wait that long,” Haun said.
Haun said having the vehicles already stocked and ready to purchase rather than waiting to order them, which can be a lengthy waiting period, made it perfect timing to make the purchases. He said the car dealership started stocking police vehicles last year.
He went on to say the vehicles are actually a bit cheaper this year than in the past order, with the cost now set at $43,600 per vehicle compared to the prior price tag of $45,000.
While the county will purchase the vehicles, Haun said the sheriff’s office will pay for all the up-fit expenses involved in preparing the vehicles to be placed into the department’s rotation of vehicles.
“We don’t pass that cost back on to (the county)” Haun said. “The up-fits are averaging almost $16,000 per vehicle, so with that, we would be contributing around $47,000 from the sheriff’s budget.”
Each of the Durango vehicles are specially designed in several ways to fulfill all the needs of the department. Haun said these specially designed Durangos, which have to be black according to state regulations, are specially designed with a more solid suspension system, come with a V-8 engine rather than the typical V-6 engine, have larger alternators to help run additional equipment, and have sirens and pursuit-rated tires that are wider than normal.
“Other than that, it’s pretty typically a civilian model,” Haun said.
However, all the up-fit details including the radios, lights, cages and detailing on the outside of the all-black vehicles come at an additional cost.
Haun said the company Hall Public Safety installs the radios, lights and sirens while Geauga Detail takes care of adding all the decals on the outside of the vehicle.
“We can transfer some things from one vehicle to another, but with all of the body style changes comes mismeasurements, so we end up having to do the up-fits anyway,” Haun said.
Haun said the department generally runs each vehicle for around 140,000 miles, after which they are returned to the county and Susan Schie, commissioner clerk, then sells them on GovDeals.com. Schie said the vehicles vary but sell for around $6,000 apiece.
Haun said including detective cars, marked cars and jail vehicles, they currently have 25 cars in service.