Car-use rule displeases Salt Lake police

Police officers in Salt Lake City may soon have to stop driving police cars when they're off duty, and they're not happy about it.

Mayor Rocky Anderson's proposed budget calls for an ordinance that would change the take-home policy for city-owned vehicles, a policy used mostly by the police and fire departments. At Tuesday's City Council meeting, about 20 officers showed up to make their opposition to the plan known.

"The city would in essence see a decrease in police service," one officer said during the council's public hearing session, reading from a statement prepared by Salt Lake City Police Association president Lee Dobrowolski. She called off-duty use of police cars "a crucial part of the police response plan."

For more than 20 years, officers have been able to take their cars home, park them in driveways and use them for part-time work, like policing events for private businesses, such as the Delta Center. They pay a fee based on the distance they live from the city's boundaries — currently capped at 45 miles.

The proposal, which aims to reduce the city's costs as gas prices rise, would require officers using the policy to live within 25 miles of the city's offices at 451 S. State St.

"We all know how expensive it is to operate cars now because we've had all these huge cost increases for gasoline," said Rocky Fluhart, deputy mayor for budget and finance. "The cost to the city has gone up significantly. We're just looking for ways to accommodate that increase in costs."

Dobrowolski said the new distance requirement would essentially kill the take-home program.

It's a program, he said, that ultimately saves taxpayers money because it allows officers to police events at the cost of private businesses rather than requiring those businesses to use on-duty officers on the city's dime.

The new ordinance would forbid officers from using their vehicles for personal use, though it would still allow the cars' use for outside work that is booked through the police department, Fluhart said.

Dobrowolski said the program also keeps police cars on the street, helping to deter crime.

"I believe most people like the fact that, if they have a police officer living next door, they have a police car visible," Dobrowolski said.

Fluhart said the change would be phased in over five years, "so it's not going to hit them all at once."