"The organizations would say 'Ooh, I want that car,' and they could pretty much get it," he said. "That's how we get in the situation where we have a bunch of SUVs because everybody wants that instead of a less sexy car."

County employees such as former Mayor Nancy Workman were soon riding around in Ford Explorer SUVs equipped with the luxury edition Eddie Bauer package, Sipos said.

The preferred list, which will be created by the Fleet Board, will include considerations such as lowest cost, safety, environmental impact and public image.

"They had a great deal of autonomy on what thy could buy, what kinds of vehicles, what kinds of packages they could put on," Godfrey said. "There was no one ever to say, no, that's not appropriate."

Along with which cars to buy, the actual purchasing power is also being yanked from the fleet and handed over to the county's central Contracts and Procurement Department. Previously, the fleet was responsible for buying and selling its own cars.

"Fleet was essentially running a used car lot out there. They had an enormous amount of energy going into selling their cars and virtually everything they did was focused on selling those cars at a good price," Sipos said.

Now, the used cars will likely be sold off at a county auction instead of sold to private dealerships.

The fleet policy also hopes to close off several loopholes in the personal use of county vehicles, Sipos said.

With strict prohibitions on any personal use not deemed "incidental" like stopping for lunch, the new policy cracks down on both taking vehicles home and leaving the county.

While the old policy prohibited county employees from taking the cars outside of the county for official business, it never mentioned driving outside the county for personal use.

"There's a little bit of a loophole where people got to go to Lake Powell on the county's nickel," Godfrey said.

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E-mail: estewart@desnews.com