Wednesday, May 04, 2005

I believe in Santa Claus. I believe in the Tooth Fairy. I do not believe in you.

Pennywise, pound foolish would likely be the best way to describe yet another series of actions the State of Wisconsin recently undertook. In their zeal to cut costs, they decided to remove approximately 1000 vehicles (cars, trucks, vans, boats, planes, etc) from the state vehicle fleet. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports on the results of a legislative audit recently completed regarding these vehicle sales.
State officials did not consider the full cost ramifications last year of slashing the number of state-owned vehicles, according to a legislative audit released this morning.
The state Department of Administration is wrapping up the sale of 1,000 state vehicles ordered last year by Gov. Jim Doyle after problems with the state’s vehicle fleet were identified. But the decision to sell those cars and trucks did not take into account increased costs for renting and leasing vehicles and for reimbursing employees who use their personal vehicles to conduct state business, the Legislative Audit Bureau reported.

It also never identified the best way to sell excess vehicles, whether by public auctions, online auctions, sales to salvage yards or sales to municipalities.

Sounds like the taxpayers really keep getting their money's worth out of these elected officials.

UPDATE: More on the growing problem with state-owned vehicles.
Somehow, I feel like this should come as a surprise...but I guess my cynical side choked that feeling into submission.
Up to 88 state employees with recent drunken-driving infractions and as many as 149 without valid Wisconsin driver's licenses were allowed to use state vehicles, according to an audit released Wednesday.

The Legislative Audit Bureau report also revealed that the Department of Corrections has not adhered to the state rules for driver eligibility, allowing employees with up to three drunken-driving convictions to continue to drive state cars, as long as the workers obtain occupational licenses.

And it gets worse...read the whole article for the full nauseating effect.