Portland, Oregon's newly elected mayor places emphasis on marketing Portland as a cleaner city. The mayor has asked the Public Works department to enhance the street sweeping program to include 1800 miles of city streets each week. As the Budget Analyst for the Public Works department, how would you go about reviewing the various options? Portland has 15 sweepers and 15 sweeper operators that clean about 1/3 of the city's streets each week (April 1st through November 30th). These streets have permanent signs limiting parking based n the schedule. Most of the remainder of the city is paper signed when occasional sweeping is scheduled. The city has 1800 miles of streets and a street sweeper can sweep approximately 15 miles of street during an 8 hr shift. Considerations:

• An employee earns $15/hr with $5/hr benefits paid by Portland
• The maintenance cost (fuel, repairs, etc.) to operate a street sweeping vehicle is $50 per 8 hr shift. A truck should not be on the road for more than 8 hrs each day.
• A new sweeper vehicle costs $18,000 and a better sweeper costs $25,000. The better sweeper can sweep 40 miles per 8 hr shift at the same $50/8 hr maintenance cost.
• The trade-in value of an old truck is $5,000 each.
• A 3rd party vendor can offer street cleaning services at a cost of $50/hr per employee. This cost would include all trucks, fuel, and maintenance services. It has been estimated that 12 employees would be needed for Portland and that each truck could sweep 30 miles per day.

What would be your recommendation?