San Bernardino County may have identified a source for potentially significant savings.
Significant as in $2 million per year, according to sources. A nice amount especially in light of budget constraints.
Last December 1st, county supervisors approved a $144,000 contract with Mercury Associates, for the purpose of conducting a study of the county’s vehicle fleet operations.
The study, which took about six months to complete, identifies several areas of wasteful spending related to unnecessary vehicle usage.
For a Board of Supervisors that’s currently afraid of its own shadow it’ll be interesting to see if they can truly ask for those car keys back.
How about take home vehicles for County safety and emergency responder staff: investigators, fire inspectors, code enforcement, flood control? Taxpayers do not need to pay this stipend for some county staff. How many jobs would that have saved?
I don’t know if anything can be done about it but I am constantly seeing county employees wasting gas in county vehicles.
On numerous occasions I have seen county employees taking naps or some other sort of extended break in county vehicles with the engines running (more often than not during mild weather conditions). This is just in one particular area of San Bernardino so I assume it occurs elsewhere as well. Just think of how many gallons of gas could be saved if this behavior was reduced or eliminated. I understand the facilities management people doing it on hot days after mowing the lawns or whatever for a little relief but more often than not employees sitting in a county car with the motor running and the A/C turned on simply isn’t ncessary.
I also see county employees with lead feet from time to time. I was once passed by a guy in a residential area in one of the Ford Escape hybrids like I was standing still. I was doing about 40-45 mph (the speed limit was 40) so I would estimate his speed at about 65 mph or so. Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of a hybrid?
I’ll tell you how to save money. Leave the county vehicles for the department employees to check out and use for their work in the field. A former director used to take cars out from under employees for his own personal use whilst collecting his monthly vehicle stipend! Guess he needed to budget his money for his drug and alcohol habit.
tacoma156: I’m probably one of those county employees you’ve seen parked somewhere taking a nap. I used to have to drive all over the freaking county to far flung places! Sometimes I’d get so drowsy that I’d have to pull over for a few minutes of shut eye or else I’d run off the road and possibly hurt myself or someone else! Psst….county employees are allowed breaks and meals! Don’t assume that just because you ‘caught’ one grabbing a cup of coffee, lunch or gasp, a nap, that they are doing something ‘naughty’. Most county employees are good folks. It’s more often than not, the higher-ups that one should be concerned about!