"We're probably going to have to buy S-10 pickup trucks and Volkswagens for the police department," Roland Town Administrator Dave Redden lamented.
Sallisaw City Manager Bill Baker said, "We had projected a 25 percent increase in this year's budget (for gas and diesel fuel). That's not going to be enough."
"I've never seen it like this," Sallisaw School Superintendent Ron Wyrick commented.
"It's terrible," District 3 Commission Cleon Harrell said. "When I became commissioner in 1999, gas was 60 cents a gallon and diesel was 39 cents a gallon. Now we're paying $2.18 a gallon for gas, and $2.10 for diesel."
"The problem is we've still got the same amount of roads to drive."
Muldrow City Manager David Taylor said, "It's a burden on all municipalities, and even more so on the schools."
All the administrators are grappling with meeting the rising costs of gasoline and diesel fuel, even though they are exempt from the taxes residents must pay.
The cost of fuel, without the taxes, is costing the towns and schools between $2.03 per gallon and $2.18 per gallon as of Monday.
As everyone gasps at rocketing fuel prices, municipal and school administrators wonder how they can stretch budgets to cover the costs.
"We're just going to have to deal with it and go on," Taylor said, adding he might have to ask the Muldrow Town Council for a supplement to finish the fiscal year. The fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30, which leaves towns and schools dealing with increasing gas costs at the beginning of the 2005-6 fiscal year.
Taylor said he was asking all town employees to conserve gasoline.
"But," Taylor noted, "the police cars still have to go.
"This reminds of back at the millennium in 1999," Taylor said. "Everyone was asking 'Are you prepared?' Prepared for what? What are we going to do? I can't tell what is going to happen with the gas prices."
Muldrow has its own gas tanks and buys gasoline at the tax-exempt price from Stites Oil Co.
"We will have problems later in the year," Baker said about Sallisaw's budget if gas prices don't decline.
Baker said he has also asked all city employees to conserve gasoline.
"I've told all department directors to quit driving so much and to quit idling their vehicles," Baker said.
(See accompanying article on gasoline conservation in this edition of Your TIMES, which notes that idling vehicles use a large amount of gasoline.)
Idling vehicles, Baker said, "are like watching money signs going out your tailpipe."
Baker said it is his understanding that the rising costs of gasoline can be blamed on supply and demand, because more gasoline is needed than is being produced. He said the price of $67.10 a barrel for crude oil on Friday was, as far as he knew, a record. Baker said he has heard rumors the gas prices will hit $3 a gallon before the end of the year.
"Unfortunately," Baker said, "the only way to get the price down is to quit driving."
Baker said the city must continue to pay for gas for police vehicles, garbage trucks and landfill vehicles, and all vehicles which support city services. "If the drought continues," he said, "we can cut back on mowing."
The City of Sallisaw also has its own fuel tanks and buys fuel from Stites Oil Co.
Wyrick said rising fuels costs, if they continue to increase, "will take away from something else. We will have to allow for it."
It's too early in the fiscal year to determine what other area in the school's budget might suffer from high gas prices, he said.
Wyrick also had concern for students and their families. "What bothers me is these people out here who are working for minimum wage or just a little above," he said. "Now they have to work 30 minutes just to buy a gallon of gas. This is going to hurt everyone."
Sallisaw Schools also has its own fuel tanks, a 5,000-gallon gas tank and a 5,000-gallon diesel tank, and buys fuel in bulk from Stites Oil Co. Assistant Superintendent Burley Middleton said the school district last bought gas and diesel in June, and the next large purchase is expected at the beginning of September.
Redden said the Town of Roland was "not handling the gas prices too good."
Roland police, he said, now drive Ford Crown Victorias. "From this date forward, we'll be looking at buying smaller vehicles," Redden said.
Redden estimates the rising cost of gasoline will cost the town 35 percent more than estimated in the 2005-6 budget. Redden said he asked the town bookkeeper for a report on gas costs Tuesday.
The town buys gas from local merchants, who have agreed to sell gasoline to the town at the tax-exempt prices.
"The gas tanks," Redden said, "cost too much because the Environmental Protective Agency standards are too restrictive."
Harrell said he has done some comparison gas shopping, and found a better price for the county.
Harrell said, "I decided to do a little shopping around. I found out Frost Oil Co. in Van Buren (Ark.) had diesel for $2.03 a gallon and gas for $2.04. I had our tanks filled up Monday for about $13,000. I figured we saved the county about $500."
Each county commissioner has tanks at their county barns, and buys the tax-exempt gas and diesel fuel at the best price they can find. Harrell's previous seller was Stites Oil Co. which offered gasoline for $2.10 a gallon on Monday and diesel for $2.18 a gallon.
But Harrell said the county may have an advantage over other gas and diesel bulk users. "We have four 2,000-gallon diesel tanks and one 2,000-gallon gas tank," Harrell said. "That's the key. We can buy the diesel and gas in bulk by the 'bob' (small truck) or by the tanker truck. If you can buy by the tanker load, you can save money."
Still, the escalating gas and diesel costs concern Harrell. A review of prices this week revealed the county paid $1.34 per gallon of gas in August 2004. That's a 70-cent increase between August 2004 and August 2005. Diesel went from $1.32 in August 2004 to $2.03 in August 2005, for a 71-cent increase.
"I called around to all the wholesale oil companies and asked them when it's going to stop," Harrell said. "Nobody knows where this is going."
Taylor concluded by voicing everyone's concerns.
"What's sad is we don't know what it (the price of gas) is going to do next," Taylor said. "I was in Wichita (Kans.) last week and gas there was $2.56 a gallon. That's a dime higher than it was here. We're just going to have to deal with it."
