State Vehicle Fleet Being Held to Higher Standard

The state Senate and the governor want to save money by changing how the state's fleet of 12,000 passenger vehicles is being used. 

The state Senate on Monday approved a bill requiring the state Department of General Services, or DGS, which manages the state fleet, to keep more specific records about who drives the vehicles and how the vehicles are used. The data collected will guide lawmakers on taking cost-saving steps, said state Sen. Mike Folmer, R-Lebanon, the sponsor of the legislation. 

The bill would require DGS to track the individual names and departments, along with the date, purpose and mileage for every trip. 

The proposal passed the state Senate with a unanimous 50-0 vote Monday and will go to the state House.

DGS, meanwhile, is nearing the completion of its own internal review of the state fleet and will be making recommendations for policy changes to Gov. Tom Corbett within the next few weeks. 

“This is something the governor takes very seriously,” Troy Thompson, spokesman for the department, said of the cost-effective changes. 

DGS also will have a more sophisticated vehicle-tracking system in place by July 1, which would monitor who is operating state vehicles and the miles driven, Thompson said. 

Though the new system will track many of the same statistics required in the Folmer bill, the senator said that is only the first step to potential cost-savings. 

“It’s a management tool so that we can look at how we’re doing business now,” Folmer said. 

The public could access the database created by the legislation. 

The changes are, in part, due to a 2009 report from state Auditor General Jack Wagner, in which he criticized the state's oversight and management of the more than 16,600-vehicle fleet, operated by 51 different departments, boards and commissions. 

The total figure given by Wagner’s report included construction trucks and other non-passenger vehicles. 

In particular, Wagner attacked DGS’s decentralized management system that allowed each government agency, board and commission to track its own vehicles. He said the lack of oversight from DGS led to “different guidelines on assignment of vehicles, shoddy record keeping, inadequate maintenance, unauthorized repairs and failure to fulfill General Services’ requests for information.” 

The department’s problems resulted in an irresponsible use of tax dollars, Wagner concluded, though he did not specify how much money could be saved by the implementing reforms. 

At a budget hearing in March, DGS Secretary Sheri Phillips said the department was unaware of how many vehicles the state owned and operated. 

On Monday, Thompson said 12,472 vehicles were in the fleet, with 8,418 of them being passenger vehicles and the remaining total being used for law enforcement. 

Thompson said the record keeping on the fleet had been “fragmented and incomplete” before the on-going review began. 

Folmer said the department was getting better, but needed more work. 

Under the bill, state employees who use their personal vehicles and are paid mileage would also have to submit their information to the database.