Panel, police chief at odds over fleet costs
http://tinyurl.com/exdkq
According to the Police Fleet Implementation Working Group’s draft report, buying 293 specially-equipped patrol cars would cost $111 more per car per year.
But the county would save $2,658 a year on each of the 76 non-patrol cars through fleet ownership, the report said.
Police Chief Lawrence Mahuna complained in a letter that the panel ignored costs associated with fleet ownership, overstated how long the vehicles would last and overlooked the need for a reserve fleet
……
The county owns just 37 of 376 vehicles used by the police department, and pays for liability insurance, one gallon of fuel for every 10 miles of driving on duty and a quart of motor oil for every 500 miles driven.
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Well I promised more background and then here I am off on a rant again… but it can’t be helped. It’s just amazing to me to believe that educated, intelligent and responsible people could manage their vehicles this way in this time and century.
You should really read the whole article if you want to see a lot of specious reasoning. I’m just going to address the mileage thing here.
First of all, how do you reimburse employees for mileage without some form of control? Dishing out money in this way is like paying people by the hour without owning a watch. I’m not only talking about the potential for employee cheating (which certainly can’t be ignored), but what about cheating the honest but forgetful employee who forgets to log miles for important county business?
Examples like this point out, more than ever, how important it is to measure what you manage.
If you’ll notice the amounts in dispiute, they are talking numbers like $1200 a year that one side says will be saved and the other side claims will not be saved. It doesn’t matter whose GPS system these guys chose, it would be hard not to make a Return On Investment in well under a year. Why bicker, hesitate and flip flop on important decisions? You wouldn’t keep time without a watch, you wouldn’t keep track of your money without an accounting program … so measure the miles that you manage.