We are taking everyone's advice and have purchased three kenwoods born and labeled to do testing to see if this improves.
OK, good.
Baofengs are in no way equal to Kenwood. Whoever told you that is on some manner of crack or crack like substance.
I "inherited" a radio system at one of our sites that was built like this. Low buck repeaters, cheap antennas, all Baofeng radios. It was installed by a guy with no test equipment. I spent about a year overhauling that system. The repeaters were tuned properly with a service monitor ($40K piece of test gear that I had to pack to the top of a mountain), that fixed a few issues/shortcomings. I replaced all the cheap antennas at the repeater sites, that fixed a few more issues. I replaced cheap coaxial cable and connectors, that fixed some more issues.
The biggest improvement in the system was to get rid of the Baofengs that they were sold. I replaced them with new Kenwood NX-3300's. Audio quality improved, coverage improved, lots of annoying issues went away.
For kicks, I put two of the Baofengs on said $40K service monitor. One was 550 Hertz off frequency, which is way out of spec for any reputable commercial gear. The other one was over deviating by quite a bit. The third one just flat no longer worked. The problem with Baofengs and the like is that there is no way to align them. They come from the factory like this and they either work OK, or they don't. If they don't, they cannot be fixed, you throw them in the trash and spin the wheel on a new one. Might get a good one, might get another crappy one.
There are several of us here that do two way radios systems for a living/career. None of us are going to buy the "Baofeng are as good as Kenwood" thing, so best put that aside. Perpetuating that statement tells us that you have very limited experience in this field and arguing the point is going to lead nowhere. I get it, we were all new once, but trying to B.S. us isn't going to work. Several of us are trying to give you some good advice that would normally come with an invoice attached.
As stated above it is a very tight budget so we do appreciate everyone's ideas, and are open minded, and will be testing those three. I'm sure based off the feedback these kenwoods will be better, and I will report back. On where we are thinking of going from there.
OK, let me point out some other things here since we're getting on the right track.
Do not buy anything from someone who is trying to sell you an $800 repeater. It's either used, or it's a cheap Chines POS. The system I inherited above is running Bridgecom repeaters. They are about as low as I'll go and still take seriously. Those run about $1400 each brand new.
And someone saying they'll sell you a repeater -and- a license is blowing smoke. You don't "buy" a license. A repeater is going to need to be put on coordinated frequencies. Before you buy anything, you need to get your frequency coordination done. It's possible there may not be any usable VHF or even UHF frequencies in your area, so buying any equipment first is very risky. Until you know for sure where the coordinator is going to put your system -and- you have your license on it's way, it's down right foolish to be buying any equipment.
And no frequency coordinator is going to put a towing company on "public safety" anything. The FCC doesn't work that way. You'll get a frequency pair out of the pool, that's it.
You are totally welcome to do what you want, but we're really trying to help you out here. Trying to build a reliable repeater system on a budget isn't going to work well unless you have several thousand dollars to spend. If budget really is tight, you'd be much better off going with a commercial radio shop that will have a system they can put you on. They've done all the hard work and will have repeaters located a high altitude sites that your company would never be able to afford. They'll sell you the radios you need and charge you a monthly fee to use their system. In exchange you'll get proper equipment and a radio system that will do what you need all at a cost way below what you'll spend trying to build your own system.
Even if you do decide to build your own system, that's not the end of the story. Repeater systems require periodic maintenance. At minimum they'll need annual maintenance done to make sure the system is operating within the limits of your FCC license. Repeaters periodically need to be tuned. Running your own repeater system is a huge undertaking, and I'm not sure you understand exactly how expensive it's going to be.