Two local townships will soon be serving their communities with new fire trucks.

Boardman and Austintown officials say they will purchase one Sutphen aerial ladder truck each to replace vehicles that need to be retired.

Austintown Township Administrator Mark D’Apolito and Boardman Administrator Jason Loree said that the trucks are built custom for each community, but because they are both purchasing the exact same truck, Sutphen can build them at a lesser price. So, Boardman and Austintown will receive a considerable discount on their purchases.

The trucks take three years to build and deliver, and will cost each township between $1.9 million and $2.4 million.

D’Apolito said the trucks will be financed over 10 years. Loree said they ordered the trucks now because the price would have gone up by about 6% at the beginning of next year.

D’Apolito said the face value of the savings for ordering now and ordering with Boardman is about $25,000, but he said that over the life of the financing, the townships each could save between $150,000 and $300,000 on interest and financing fees.

D’Apolito said Austintown’s current ladder truck is more than 30 years old, and the township spent $30,000 just last year to replace the rotating base of the ladder.

“Because it’s so old and the parts are no longer available, they had to machine the parts to fix the truck, so it just makes so much more financial sense to replace it,” he said.

D’Apolito said the truck replacement is possible because of the 3-mill additional levy voters passed in November.

“We want to thank residents for supporting the levy and supporting fire services, because that allowed us to make decisions to support good government, good fire service and sound fiscal responsibility,” he said.

Loree said the standard for replacing fire vehicles is about 15 years and Boardman’s ladder truck is already 13 years old, so it will be past that mark when the new vehicle is delivered in three years.

Loree said the township is considering a possible merger with Canfield’s Cardinal Fire District, but that the truck purchase will not affect those plans either way.

“We would need the new truck anyway, just based on the district’s service size,” he said. “So this purchase will not impact the discussions about the merger.”