SKOWHEGAN — Skowhegan joined more than a dozen other central Maine communities Tuesday night entering into a joint purchasing agreement with the Kennebec Valley Council of Governments. Selectmen voted 5-0 to participate in a purchasing deal for rock salt from Harcross Chemicals for winter roads for the Highway Department at a cost this season of up to $150,000.

Skowhegan Road Commissioner Greg Dore said the agreement will save the town about $10,000 compared to what it would have cost had he gone it alone in the market for road salt.

“We participate in the KVCOG bids for culverts, silt fence, salt, geo-textiles,” Dore said Tuesday night before the selectmen’s meeting. “That’s one of the reasons that we’re a member of KVCOG, because we get to participate in their bid.”

Dore said KVCOG will work with as many as a dozen towns, all buying the road salt together to get a better price. The town has been working with the organization for more than a decade.

“If we didn’t, I’d have to buy it on my own,” he said. “Buying it on your own, you’re talking about a 2,000- or 2,500-yard purchase. By going in with other towns, they buy 10 times that amount — it’s a 20,000-ton purchase, as opposed to a 2,000-ton purchase, and you get a better price.”

The agreement amounts to a savings of about $4 or $5 per ton, he said. He said the town saves an equal amount of money on the purchase of culverts for ditching projects.

Dore told selectmen that there is $200,000 in the reserve account and most of the remaining $50,000 will be used to buy sand and anti-icing additive to slow freezing on paved road surfaces.

Founded as the North Kennebec Regional Planning Commission in 1967, KVCOG is a municipal services corporation owned and operated by and for the benefit of its members, according to its website.

KVCOG is in its 47th year of serving its municipal members. Membership evolved from the founding municipalities to the current forty-seven members, representing a population of about 182,000.

KVCOG grew out of a shared desire by municipal officials in Kennebec, Somerset and western Waldo Counties to take a regional approach to improving life by pooling resources and building the capacity to solve problems and to take advantage of opportunities not otherwise available to any one municipality.

KVCOG is a federally designated Economic Development District and a state designated Regional Planning and Development District.

Doug Harlow — 612-2367

dharlow@centralmaine.com

Twitter:@Doug_Harlow

Copy the Story Link