The City of Jonesboro, Ark., has leased three new sanitation trucks to improve the timeliness of service throughout the city. One is a knuckleboom — a limb-pickup and yard-waste collector — and two are automated refuse trucks for residential trash service, according to a city release.

The trucks are leased for $14,085 per month through U.S. Bank for two years. The city has options to keep or return the trucks after that, but Mayor Harold Perrin said the goal would be to return them and lease newer ones.

City Council passed a resolution to acquire the trucks because the current fleet has had repeated breakdowns and missed or delayed service days.

“We originally had these two trucks in the 2019 budget,” Perrin said. “But because of financial constraints, we hoped to hold off until 2020. But the cost of repairs coupled with the loss of customer service made this an issue we simply could not push back farther.”