Junction City recently went out to bid on lease purchase financing for a sanitation truck and two front end loaders.

 

The city received eight bids from four different banks. Three of the banks were local including Intrust Bank, Millennium Bank and Kansas State Bank. The fourth bank was Santander Bank out of Scottsdale, Arizona.

Santander Bank’s bid was for five years at 1.84 percent. That bid was the lowest out of the the five bids that were submitted for a five year loan.

Cheryl Beatty, Assistant City Manager and Finance Director, explained that they had projected for a five year loan in this years budget.

“That’s how we had projected out, particularly in the solid waste fund which is the bulk of this money, what we could afford in the solid waste fund without having large rate increases on an annual basis,” Beatty told the commission.

Commissioner Pat Landes said they don’t like to see money going out of town,”we like to keep things local as much as possible but it’s over $4,000 difference from the next closest bid.”

Beatty did say that the city has a provision in the code that talks about local preference but in this case it doesn’t qualify.

“A local bid, if their bid is within three percent of the bid, then they get local preference but this is not within three percent,” Beatty said.

The commission awarded the bid to Santander Bank on a 5-0 vote. It will now have to go back in front of the city commission again to have a resolution adopted and have the lease purchase agreement finalized.