Task force urges S.L. County to revamp fleet of vehicles

Following up on the findings of a citizens review panel, a Salt Lake County task force is recommending reducing the county's fleet, buying smaller and more fuel-efficient vehicles and reducing the number of take-home vehicles.

"They identified some pretty significant (opportunities for) savings and there's more to come," said chief administrative officer Doug Willmore.

County Mayor Peter Corroon has scheduled a press conference for today to present the task force's findings.

Earlier this year, Corroon created the task force, headed up by county public works director John Patterson, to identify fleet problems indicated by the citizens review panel, which sharply criticized fleet operations in its report last December in the aftermath of last year's "guzzle-gate" affair.

"The county's vehicle-fleet program is poorly managed, suffers from a systemic lack of meaningful oversight and needs a massive overhaul," the panel's report stated.

Panelist Vern Della-Piana said at the time the fleet was "out of control."

With the new recommendations, "We tried to get a (system) where users have a more substantive voice than they had beforehand," said task force member Michael Chabries, a County Council staffer.

Among other things, the task force recommends creation of an independent fleet management board to approve new vehicles, review utilization and generally make procedural decisions that currently reside in the hands of fleet managers — a system that has been widely criticized for its potential for abuse.

County fleet director Nick Morgan was placed on administrative leave last week pending the results of an investigation into allegedly falsifying travel vouchers and using county resources for personal use.

The members of the independent board "will have no vested interest," Chabries said, other than sound practices and efficient use of funds. "They really now become the independent enforcement arm of a county-wide fleet organization, and that's better for the taxpayers."

Another way to curb potential abuses recommended by the task force is to eliminate the fleet's $10 million fund balance, a troubling point for the citizens review panel as well.

Fund balances on that scale often enable managers to act without accountability, since they don't have to ask for funds.