DATE: October 17, 2005
TO: Staff
FROM: Mike Rundle
RE: Take Home Vehicles
CC: City Commissioners, city staff
Thank you for compiling the mileage information regarding take home vehicles. As you know this has been a recurring topic of information exchange for several years now. Let me recap a brief chronology.
I first brought the topic of take-home vehicles up in the context of discussions of an auditor position for the City of Lawrence. I presented copies of a document from Kansas City, Missouri as an example of the kind of work that could be performed by an auditor. (That document is available on the Kansas City, Missouri web site and I've attached a pdf file of it here.) I may have made reference to the cost of unnecessary take home vehicles as a possible area of cost savings during our budget preparation sessions.
As you may read in the KCMO audit, the audit began by looking at policies governing the use of take home vehicles. The audit examined the policies to assess whether they were well crafted and whether terms and criteria were well defined. The audit also examined the application of those policies. The standard, however, might be summarized that city vehicles should be assigned for frequent emergency use, or for employees who are frequently required to answer emergency calls during business and non-business hours.
The policies governing the assignment of take-home cars to Lawrence staff is as follows according to a memo from Debbie Van Saun in May of this year:
“City Vehicles. It is the responsibility of the employee to see that City vehicles are used for City business only. Employees who are assigned vehicles shall take the most direct route to and from their homes. City vehicles may only be assigned to be taken home by employees who reside within the City limits unless it is determined by the department director to be in the best interest of the City to allow employees residing outside the city limits to take a vehicle home. Employees who are assigned vehicles to take home will be required to pay appropriate income taxes. Within the confines of the workday, personal use of a City vehicle may be approved subject to departmental rules and regulations. Any City employee who drives a City-owned vehicle must have a valid driver’s license that must be on or accompany the person when driving such a vehicle. Seat belts must be worn at all times while operating or riding in a City vehicle.”
(Section VI.G – pages 44 to 45)
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This does not seem to me to be a policy for assignment of vehicles on the basis of a proven need for the vehicle to fulfill work responsibilities. The departmental discretion for approving personal use of a city vehicle during the workday or to determine whether it is in the best interest of the City to allow employees residing outside the city limits to take a vehicle home lacks standards of any kind for application or interpretation.
The Kansas City, Missouri audit revealed that nearly 75% of city take-home vehicles were used infrequently (once a month or less) for emergency responses outside normal working hours. The audit further provided an example of cost savings from reimbursement of employees for their mileage rather than providing a take home vehicle of almost 95%.
Using the data provided by staff for 48 take-home vehicles I made a rough projection of the annual commuting costs for those vehicles. I eliminated one vehicle which was only used when the employee was on call. I assumed one round trip per working day. I attempted to be conservative in my calculations and assumed 49 weeks of use with the remaining three weeks in the year attributed to leave time. I used the Bureau of Transportation Statistics operating cost estimate from 2002 which resulted in a total annual cost of over $78,000 for driving back and forth to work, or an average of $1,595 per vehicle.
I am not putting these projections forth in the same vein as an actual audit. I do think they make it clear that the cost is substantial. I believe there is a possibility that we could reallocate costs to be able to afford additional staffing or other costs that the City Manager has kept of the recommended city budget. I note that the May memo from Ms Van Saun indicated that there were 61 city vehicles that were routinely taken home by employees whereas the data provided in the spreadsheet provided in late September only included 49 vehicles. If one uses the average annual mileage for the additional vehicles the projected costs for commuting approach $100,000.
I would probably have waited to bring this issue to the commission for discussion but for the recent memo provided by the city manager from the Department of Neighborhood Resources. It appears to me that rather than taking a systematic approach each department may be acting independently. Further, other than my information requests and recent discussions precipitated by the spike in fuel costs the commission has not considered this and staff has not provided any analysis of possible issues. I am very concerned that there has been no real process for making appropriate decisions.
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In spite of the lack of commission discussion I have the impression that employees are being made to believe that steps being taken related to take-home vehicles have commission direction behind them! It has appears to me, as it has in the past, this is a perfect opportunity to work as a team—one that includes city commissioners, management staff and the lower level supervisory staff and street level employees—in an effort to identify problems and opportunities, and then develop solutions and approaches that make the most sense. Instead this has the potential to become a wedge between staff and the city commission. The steps being taken seem somewhat arbitrary. In the case of Neighborhood Resources, I do not believe the proposed actions are appropriate.
The staff memo states that it is reasonable for the Code Enforcement Manager to continue to take a vehicle home. I have to ask why? It seems to me that this particular vehicle has been used far more for commuting and than it has been used for work in the field. It would be more appropriate, I think, for an inspector to have a take-home vehicle to be able to complete an inspection on the way home at the end of the day because a homeowner or builder is only available at that time, or to be able to do an inspection en route to work in the morning.
Other examples:
It seems more appropriate for a T Route Supervisor to use the vehicles purchased for that purpose to be able to respond to emergencies in the field than to provide a car for the MV supervisor to drive back and forth to work in a city car. (That is, of course, a hypothetical example; I know that we don't furnish employees of MV with city cars.)
Solid waste field supervisors who leave home and drive to routes immediately to begin problem solving, or street supervisors who have to assess road conditions caused by a sudden snow storm might more appropriately be assigned a take-home vehicle than a department head who routinely drives to work and sits at a desk.
The above examples may be full of inaccuracies and misstatements that I am sure the management team will quickly point out every one of them. That misses the point entirely. It has been several years since I began to ask that we look into cost efficiencies and for staff to make an effort to increase productivity. Rather than taking action based on careful study as exemplified in the KC, MO audit, and making sure that proposed actions grow out of a process that has allowed for good communication involving directors and their managers and supervisors, it seems to me that we are taking hasty actions because of the recent spike in fuel prices.
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I don't want actions to result in a decrease in compensation for employees who accepted their positions with the understanding that the vehicle was a part of their employment package. Do you have any idea how steps being taken or considered are going to affect morale of affected supervisory staff? Has there been any analysis for impacts on service delivery? The savings in fuel costs may not offset costs of delayed response time due to removal of take-home vehicles for field supervisors.
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Let me reiterate my frustration at the lack of any visible effort on the part of the management team to systematically assess internal costs to increase productivity, or to empower street level staff to identify opportunities for the same. I notice that implementation of any systematic performance management was included in the staff update of city commission goals as a possible budget item for the 2007 fiscal year. That further indicates that staff has little if any intention of following through on performance management—this is all the more disappointing given that performance management is almost guaranteed to improve service delivery and result in savings of tax dollars. And staff would have all the more reason to be proud to serve in our community. In the meantime city commissioners have to find a way to solve massive infrastructure problems that should have been anticipated and completely avoided by professional management staff.