Smithtown’s aging vehicle fleet might soon see a major upgrade.

Town Comptroller Donald Musgnug pitched a proposal at Tuesday’s Town Board work session that could essentially allow the town to trade in its dated cars and trucks for newer, more fuel-efficient vehicles. The Town Board discussed the potential fleet management agreement with representatives of Enterprise on Musgnug’s recommendations to act sooner than later.

“Clearly we have an aging fleet,” Musgnug said to the board members at Tuesday’s work session. “Enterprise is one of the leaders in this industry. The proposal is on the table.”

The comptroller said Smithtown currently manages 192 vehicles of varying sizes with many of them approaching two decades of use under the town’s ownership. Some of its most maintenance-heavy vehicles, he said, included a 1997 Ford F250 pickup truck with 285,000 miles on it and a Chevy Express 3500 cargo van with 184,000 miles on it. If the town were to sign onto a deal with Enterprise, representatives said, an advisor would help the town lower the age of its fleet to cut costs of maintenance and fuel by trading them out for newer, leased vehicles.

“We’ve been doing this with a lot of New York entities,” said Jacob Garth, government marketing manager at Enterprise Fleet Management. “We do more than just managing and acquiring vehicles. When we look at the fleet, one of the key objectives we make is to lower the age of the fleet, and a significant portion of your fleet is more than 10 years old.”

Garth said that municipalities like Smithtown typically purchase their vehicles via state contractors, which often limit purchases to only one manufacturer. Enterprise, however, has more than 1.6 million vehicles in its fleet from a range of manufacturers, which Garth argued would give Smithtown more opportunity for savings through open-ended leases.

Musgnug said his preliminary recommendations were to reduce Smithtown’s fleet size from 192 to 173 over five years.

“We’re looking at a phase-in approach because we currently have a maintenance crew of more than 20 auto mechanics in the town,” he said. “Phasing it in allows them to stay occupied, and through attrition, there may be some reduction because as you have some new vehicles, the maintenance lessens. This could be significant cost savings.”

Town Councilman Tom McCarthy (R) expressed steadfast support for the proposal to upgrade the town’s aging fleet and asked Musgnug if it was possible to phase new vehicles in over three years instead of five.

“Let’s get rid of all this garbage,” he said.

Fleet consultant Jay Greene of Enterprise said his group has already signed onto similar agreements with Brookhaven and Huntington towns and started discussing plans with Smithtown back in September.

Town Supervisor Pat Vecchio (R) said he felt the board needed to take more time to learn about its options and pushed the discussion to a later date. He also instructed Musgnug to touch base with his government counterparts in neighboring Brookhaven and Huntington in order to draft a report of testimonials from towns already working on a similar plan with Enterprise.

“I would think we would need more discussion amongst ourselves about whether or not we want to do this,” Vecchio said. “This is a discussion we need to have at another date, and we’ll contact Enterprise.”