Less than a month into the new fiscal year, one city department is having to reshuffle its funding after a private contractor quit business due to high fuel costs.

Public Works Director Mike Stewart said the announcement by the Tulsa-based company that had been handling the Muskogee’s street-sweeping needs resulted with an estimated $20,000 shortfall in the funds budgeted for those services.

Stewart said only one company, Unlimited Sweepers, submitted a bid to provide the services Night Hawk had been providing for about $166,000 a year. Unlimited Sweepers and Cleaners’ bid totaled nearly $223,900, almost 35 percent above the amount budgeted for the 2009 fiscal year.

After negotiating changes in the scope of the work, Stewart said the parties were able to chisel away some of the costs of the original bid. City councilors approved the amended 12-month contract totaling $187,110, a 12.7 percent increase in the budgeted amount.

In response to concerns expressed this past week, Stewart told city councilors he was confident approval of the contract would be less costly over time than buying a street sweeper. He said maintenance for such a machine is costly.

To make up the difference between the higher cost of street sweeping and the amount budgeted for that task, Stewart said he plans to pull an estimated $20,000 from his streets budget — roughly about $10,000 from both the contractual services and materials accounts.

“This is indicative of what we’re going to have to be watching during the coming months when it comes to fuel prices,” Stewart said. “This has us very concerned here in services. We are going to have to watch fuel prices closely and probably make evaluations quarterly to see what we are going to be able to do.”

The contract approved Monday provides Unlimited Sweepers shall:

• Clean all curbs, gutters, median curbs, gore points and turning lanes.

• Clean the median tops once every three months.

• Clean the tops of the grates of the city’s stormwater collection system, but catch basins will not be included.

• Check in each weekday morning with the city’s monitoring officer.

Stewart said the cost-cutting measures included reductions in the frequency of sweeping in certain areas.

The central business district, Stewart said, will be swept twice a week instead of three times. Residential areas, which had been swept twice between October and December, will be targeted once during the fourth quarter of the year.

Arterial streets, Stewart said, will continue to be swept every two weeks during the contract year, which begins Friday and will continue through July 31, 2009.