Temple City Council authorized, 4-1, the purchase of $1.55 million in solid waste equipment Thursday. The purchase, which Mayor Bill Jones III opposed, keeps the city on schedule to take over all sanitation services by Oct. 1.

In November 2003, City Council, dumping previous privatization efforts set by itself not even a month earlier, figured the city could make more money by providing all solid waste services — residential and commercial. The city currently handles all residential accounts and some commercial accounts. BFI handles 71 percent of the commercial services through a franchisee agreement that ends Sept. 30.

In order to handle those additional commercial accounts by the October deadline, the city still needs to hire and train additional staff, purchase containers, define commercial customers, develop its routes and contact customers. City Services Director Mike Olson said all that should be done by Aug. 15.

Thursday’s purchase includes five front-loading refuse trucks from Dallas Peterbilt for $782,400; four roll-off refuse trucks from Longhorn International of Temple for $391,398; one metal side loading refuse truck from Longhorn for $120,019; and two plastic sideloading refuse trucks from Temple Freightliner for $251,630. The city expects to receive the trucks in six or seven months.