Senator Jennifer Beck, a member of the Senate State Government Committee, issued the following statement regarding the results of a hearing Monday on the misuse of state vehicles detailed in a report issued by the State Auditor on December 21, 2007. Annually, the state Central Motor Pool costs taxpayers about $20 million per year, excluding any administrative costs.
“I am absolutely appalled to learn that the abuses in state vehicle use detailed by the State Auditor in December of 2007 continue to exist. The audit uncovered that over the course of two years, the operators of 602 state vehicles made 2,072 gas purchases where that amount purchased exceeded the gas tank capacity. It went on to say that annually 158,000 gallons of fuel are consumed without accurate documentation as to which car that fuel is going into, which equates to roughly $372,880. Additionally, in Fiscal Year 2007 the audit found there were 1,200 same day gas transactions, many of which were deemed questionable and/or unreasonable. With this record of fraud and abuse, only two vehicles have been recalled from their operators over the last eleven months. I believe the Attorney General needs to undertake a full investigation of this matter.
“In addition to what seems to be widespread stealing of gasoline, we also know the strict dictates on mileage reports and maintenance standards have been largely ignored and continue to be ignored. According to the audit, out of the entire state fleet of 7,600 vehicles, the operators of 6,396 failed to file their mileage records for at least three months, and 217 filed no mileage report at all for the entirety of 2007. Almost eleven months after this information came to light, Treasury reported that only 66 percent of the vehicles meet the recommended maintenance requirements and mileage reporting continues to be haphazard as they wait for a new system to be installed. This abuse of taxpayer funded vehicles is appalling and possibly criminal.
“To me widespread abuse like this means we should eliminate the majority of state vehicles. The oversight of taxpayer funded motor vehicle usage is lax or non-existent. Even more disturbing, is the fact that only two vehicles out of the entire state fleet have been recalled after this information was made public nearly eleven months ago.”
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