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The odometer in the Caribou Police Department’s oldest cruiser is nearing 175,000 miles.
Nearly half the department’s cruisers are more than 8 years old. Caribou spent nearly $100,000 on two new cruisers within the last year and roughly double the industry average on maintenance for its aging fleet. And vehicles aren’t getting any cheaper.
Officers worry about the cost and safety implications of that, and say taxpayers should be concerned, too. That’s part of the pitch for the city to replace some of its municipal fleet with vehicles leased through rental car giant Enterprise.
In several Maine communities, that idea is already reality. More than half a dozen law enforcement agencies have partnered with Enterprise in the last five years. Officers say the growing trend has allowed departments to save money and increase their footprints by transitioning to newer vehicles that see fewer miles and reduced maintenance costs.
“The rising cost of vehicles in the last five years … has really created some really nice opportunities for us to help come in and save cities and towns money,” Enterprise Fleet Management Senior Account Executive Jeff Morgan told the Caribou City Council last month.
Adding additional vehicles also has allowed departments to expand take-home car programs, which officers say improves off-duty response times and overall community policing.
“In critical situations — such as an active shooter — every second matters,” Caribou police Officer Eric Depner said.
The shift toward leasing also reflects budget crises that have gripped communities statewide, causing local governments to seek increasingly creative ways to cut costs while maintaining quality of service.
Is it working? In Maine’s rural north, where police presence has shrunk amid staffing shortages in recent years, some of the program’s earliest adopters say yes.
In 2022, the city of Presque Isle became the first public agency in Maine to contract with Enterprise Fleet Management, a division of the company that leases full vehicle fleets to public and private entities.
Instead of replacing vehicles every nine and a half years as it did previously, the city entered into mostly five-year leases that halved the life cycle of police cruisers and put officers in safer, “more economically efficient cars.”
“This was the largest historic advancement in police vehicles seen in our area to date,” Presque Isle police Sgt. Kyle White said.
In the four years since, Ellsworth, Waterville, Augusta, Waldo County, Oxford County and Aroostook County have all partnered with Enterprise. And, according to White, the company expects to sign contracts with “five to 10 more agencies this year.”
Presque Isle is paying $396,000 this year on leasing, up $86,000 from 2025, as it phases a 44-vehicle municipal fleet into the program. Twenty-three are police vehicles. The city has 11 more vehicles now than it did before partnering with Enterprise.
Morgan did not respond to an interview request. But the Bangor Daily News reviewed dozens of pages of publicly available proposals and lease agreements prepared by Enterprise and hours of local deliberation in addition to interviews with law enforcement to understand the company’s expansion into Maine.
The fleet program isn’t strictly for law enforcement agencies. Agreements extend to other city departments, such as fire or parks and recreation.
When an agency enters a fleet lease program, its existing vehicles are sold off and replaced over a set transition period. In Presque Isle, it was five years. If approved in Caribou, the transition would take place over just two.
An Enterprise account team manages fleets and meets with municipal officials to discuss which vehicles will be replaced and when — and coordinates any aftermarket equipment additions, such as lightbars or camera systems.
“They order the vehicles, they send them to the outfitter. The outfitter contacts us when they’re done and when they’re ready to hit the road,” Aroostook County Sheriff Peter Johnson said. “Whereas before we had to pick up the vehicle, bring it to get outfitted, bring it to get decaled, bring it to get stuff done on the windows. There were three or four different places that those vehicles had to be shuffled around in order to be able to get the vehicle on the road.”
The sheriff’s office, which signed on with Enterprise last year, has so far replaced five of its 24 cruisers. It’s projected to save around $500,000 over the next decade as a result of the program, Johnson said.
Enterprise executives and law enforcement officials said the monetary benefits of the partnership are multifaceted.
Leasing means departments no longer have to save capital over several years to afford a new vehicle. Instead, they pay smaller, fixed payments that break up the purchase over time and make for easier budgeting.
For example, a 2026 Ford Police Interceptor retails for above $50,000. A lease agreement presented by Enterprise to the Caribou City Council this month sets monthly payments at just over $1,200.
Over a 60-month lease, the city would pay more than retail value, but get a portion of the money back by selling the vehicle at the end of the term. Kelley Blue Book estimates that new cars hold 45% of their value after five years, meaning a $50,000 vehicle is still worth more than $20,000.
Even though police cruisers endure more wear and tear than the average car, the return is substantially better than after a vehicle has been in service nearly 10 years, as some of Caribou’s cruisers have been.
“This ensures better residual value compared to the city’s current aging fleet, where vehicles often have minimal resale value,” Depner said.
Depner, the Caribou Police Department’s fleet manager, previously served on Presque Isle’s force and helped adopt the program there. Newer vehicles save money because they require less maintenance, get better mileage and remain under manufacturer warranty for most of the lease, he said.
“I think that’s why you’re seeing a lot of places go to that, because of the savings that you can get from leasing versus buying,” Johnson said.
There is a caveat.
“The downfall to that process is that if you are using a capital account or something like that to outright purchase your vehicles and outfit them, then you’re not incurring any debt,” the sheriff said. “With this program you are bringing on debt.”
That fact has become an issue in at least one community. Enterprise threatened to repossess 41 police cruisers in Ohio after a county defaulted on lease payments.
But as Maine law enforcement agencies balance effective service with tight budgets, those who endorse the program believe it’s worth trying something new.
“Ask any law enforcement officer what their least favorite saying is and most will answer the same: ‘That’s the way we’ve always done it,’” White said. “This is the type of narrow-minded and negative thinking that plagues civil service, chokes progression, kills effectiveness and efficiency, and is grossly deviant to the obligation we have to the taxpayers of this city.”