HERMANN – This might be the year Gasconade County administrators expand the highway agency’s fleet of roadgraders.

As the members of the County Commission Thursday morning pondered the bids received for a new grader — as well as the buy-back, or trade-in, values being offered by the dealers — the notion of keeping the piece of equipment that would be returned sounded better and better.

The county Road Department has five graders. A new grader would bump the fleet to six, allowing five to be on the road at all times with one grader available as a backup in case one of the other five needs repairs.

“Let’s talk to the Road Department,” said Southern District Associate Commissioner Jerry Lairmore, R-Owensville, adding that this year might be a good time to hang on to the piece of equipment that normally would be returned through a buy back process used in previous years.

The county typically does not receive many bids when it seeks a new roadgrader; indeed, this year’s planned purchase garnered only two bids — one from a John Deere dealer and a second from a Caterpillar dealer. In terms of bottom-line price, the Caterpillar would cost less, but the conditions regarding a buy back concerned county officials. The buy-back amount offered by the John Deere dealer prompted the administrators to look again at the option of keeping in service the grader that otherwise would be sent back to a dealer.

The John Deere bid is for $397,514 while the Caterpillar bid is for $357,000.

Presiding Commissioner Tim Schulte, R-Hermann, said he preferred accepting the Caterpillar bid and not do a buy back or trade in on the grader. Rather, keep the piece of equipment and have it ready for use if one of the other graders needs maintenance.

The county already has more graders than it has employees to operate them, at least full time. There are four full-time grader operators and a fifth Road Department employee who has grader experience now is taking on administrative duties within the agency, leaving him available only part-time to help the other operators maintain the roads.

The Road Department is looking to fill a vacancy and they might have found someone with experience operating a grader; however, county officials noted, it might be a while before that person can join the ranks of the department employees because he is recovering from a medical procedure.

Meanwhile, a key piece of road-maintenance equipment — the road groom — has been idled by the department.

“We don’t have anybody to run it,” Lairmore said.

The road groom was purchased late last year and works much like a harrow used by farmers to help break up ground. The road groom, which is pulled by a pickup truck, is lowered into the surface of a gravel road and used to break up sections of the road, mainly those areas containing potholes and washboarding.

The road groom was purchased with the intent of not dispatching a grader to a road with rough sections of surface. After the road groom was put through its paces initially, it had some problems, including tire problems. Now, it just needs someone to operate it.

The discussion on road-maintenance equipment during the half-hour session last week highlights the County Commission’s first and foremost responsibility: maintaining the county’s network of roads and bridges. There are more than 400 miles of roads to maintain contained on about 200 roadways.