The 59 take-home vehicles cost the county almost half a million dollars for 2014, according to an Auditor-Controller's Office report
Blog note: this article references a 2015 Santa
Barbara County Grand Jury report.
A recent audit found that Santa
Barbara County Sheriff’s Department employees
commuting to work from their homes in county vehicles, some from out of county
and at long distances, ran up almost half a million dollars last year in fuel
and maintenance costs.
The audit was conducted by the county
Auditor-Controller’s Office, and looked at all sheriff’s employees authorized
to use county-owned vehicles to travel between their homes and work locations
on a regular basis between July 2014 and May 2015.
“The sheriff’s take‐home vehicles are primarily unmarked sedans, trucks, vans and
sport-utility vehicles that are equipped with lights, sirens, and radio
equipment, and often carry other equipment such as personal protective gear,”
the report said.
Out of the department’s 259 service vehicles,
59 are take-home vehicles.
County policy allows for Sheriff’s Department
employees to use the vehicles to commute from their homes to work with
approval, and the department maintains this makes sure law enforcement can
respond immediately to unforeseen emergencies.
That readiness isn’t without cost, however.
“Excluding those employees who may partially
or occasionally commute in county vehicles, we estimated the annual cost to the
county of sheriff employees using county vehicles to commute to be $446,000 for
calendar year 2014 and $356,000 for calendar year 2015,” the report said.
A map was also published in the report with
the locations of vehicles included on the sheriff’s July 2014 vehicle take-home
list. It shows employees driving from their homes to work in Santa Barbara
as far east as Santa Paula and as far north as Creston, east of
Atascadero.
Another pin on the map shows a driver from New
Cuyama driving to Santa Barbara for work.
Over 800,000 miles of commuting were logged in
2014.
As of July of last year, 15 of those employees
lived outside of the county, numbers that are down to eight this year.
The report points out that in addition to the
costs, the use of county vehicle for commuting increases the county’s liability
exposure.
This map shows from where Sheriff’s Department
employees were using county vehicle for commuting. The cost of county vehicles
used for commuting, which amount to almost $500,000 in 2014 for the Sheriff’s
Department, be examined by the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. (Santa Barbara
County Auditor-Controller’s Office)
“Using General Services’ accident data and the
sheriff’s 2014 annual commute miles, we estimated that up to 10 accidents per
year may be attributable to the use of county vehicles for commuting,” the
report said.
“Moreover, the county is responsible for up to
$500,000 per a loss for any general-liability claims related to these
accidents.”
On Tuesday, the county Board of Supervisors
will be asked to receive and file the report on the commuting policies. Because
the report is on the administrative agenda, no discussion is planned on it
unless a supervisor asks to bring it up.
The audit set out to estimate the annual cost
of sheriff’s employees using county-owned vehicles to commute and see if there
were any alternatives. The county also wanted to see whether the
department complied with IRS regulations as well as the county’s own rules on
take-home vehicles.
Information wasn’t provided on employees who
partially or occasionally commute in county vehicles, so they weren’t included
in the audit.
The evaluation was recommended last May by
the Santa Barbara County Grand Jury, which studied the take-home vehicle
issue.
Some of the alternatives could be revoking the
vehicle usages for employees who use the vehicle 50 percent or more of the time
for commuting, the report said.
Limiting the vehicles just to people who live
in the county, or providing an annual car allowance instead, were also listed.
All but two employees, who were not sworn
officers but were still using the vehicles to commute, were found to be in compliance
with IRS rules.
One of those employees was using the vehicle
to transport a family member, the report stated, even though county rules state
the vehicles are only for use for county business.
The audit also found that commute miles listed
for 25 employees were inaccurate by more than 10 miles and 10 percent when
compared to online mapping software, the report said.
About 11 employees had incorrect residences or
work stations listed.
The Sheriff’s Department issued a response in
early October to the findings, agreeing with some but taking issue with others.
The department agreed to check its vehicle
listings and inventories annually for accuracy, but when looking at vehicle
alternatives, the department said that the alternatives suggested by the Auditor-Controller's office
may seem feasible but didn’t take into account the nature of the job.
“Personnel who are assigned vehicles are in
24-hour, on‐call assignments, and are required to respond
to a variety of unforeseen emergencies in a timely manner with specialized
equipment and expertise,” the sheriff's department wrote in response to the
Grand Jury report.
“Any policy which tends to limit the ability
of certain public safety employees to rapidly respond directly to an emergency
at any time of day or night is contrary to the public-safety mission of the
Sheriff’s Office.”
Sheriff's spokeswoman Kelly Hoover noted that
one of the first assignments given to Undersheriff Barney
Melekian after he was hired was to review the number of Sheriff's
Department take-home vehicles in response to the Grand Jury's report.
The Sheriff's Office worked closely with the
Auditor-Controller's Office, Hoover said, and evaluated the number of take-home
vehicles, the locations where the employees reside, and the need for those
employees to respond to unforeseen emergencies in the shortest time possible.
"As a result,
10 cars were removed from the fleet, which is a net reduction of $90,000
dollars and a 20-percent cost savings," Hoover said.
November 13, 2015
NOOZHAWK
By
Laura Cooper
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