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City of Austin paying for some employees daily out of town commute
When fuel prices soared past $4 per gallon this summer, it prompted most drivers to take a serious look at the time they spend on the road. Many downsized their vehicles, considered carpooling or made fewer trips. So, why didn’t the City of Austin Watershed Protection and Development Review Department (WPDR) opt for any of these cost saving measures? One residential inspector drives his city truck back and forth to his home in McDade. McDade is in Lee County, on the other side of Bastrop. It’s a 359 miler per week commute, but it doesn’t cost the inspector a dime. It’s courtesy of the City of Austin taxpayers.
City of Austin paying for some employees daily out of town commute
11/05/2008
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Investigating the cost of city vehicles
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When fuel prices soared past $4 per gallon this summer, it prompted most drivers to take a serious look at the time they spend on the road. Many downsized their vehicles, considered carpooling or made fewer trips. So, why didn’t the City of Austin Watershed Protection and Development Review Department (WPDR) opt for any of these cost saving measures?
WPDR is the department that oversees building inspections. Each inspector is assigned a city owned vehicle to use on the job. They also get to use it to drive back and forth to work. And for some inspectors, it’s a long commute. |
This is one of the trucks a City of Austin employees is allowed to drive to and from work.
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| One residential inspector drives his city truck back and forth to his home in McDade. McDade is in Lee County, on the other side of Bastrop. It’s a 359 miler per week commute, but it doesn’t cost the inspector a dime. It’s courtesy of the City of Austin taxpayers.
He isn't the only out of town commuter.
Thirty one of the 47 building inspectors, who are allowed to take home city vehicles, live outside of the city. Most live outside of the county.
Thirteen live in Bastrop County, six live in Hays County, five live in Williamson County, four commute from Burnet County, one lives in Caldwell County and one lives in Travis County, just outside the city limits of Austin.
But the City of Austin has a policy against it.
The policy says, "It is the policy of the City of Austin to keep take-home vehicles to the absolute minimum. Employees who live outside the city service area are not allowed to take-home vehicles."
Citing a loophole in the policy, Victoria Li, the director of WPDR says, "First of all the city policy, in principal does say you should keep the take home vehicle to a minimum, but it also provides the department director discretion, based on situation, the department director can make a decision whether to let people take the vehicle back home."
COST EFFECTIVENESS
The department argues that taking vehicles home allows inspectors to do more inspections. But the city's own data shows in most cases take-home vehicles is not cost effective for taxpayers.
Reviewing six months of inspection data, we found a specific supervisor didn't do a single inspection, much less any additional inspections. The City pays the $724 per month to lease the truck he drives back and forth to his office. The fuel for his daily commute to and from Hays County is also courtesy of the City of Austin taxpayers.
Victoria Li says even though supervisors do go to the office each day, she says they are allowed to continue using city vehicles to commute because they had them when they worked in the field as inspectors.
“They would come into the office to work, then we take their vehicle away, it would be very difficult to find a good inspector, a good leader for the group to be promoted. They would want to give up the promotion," said Li.
Promotions come with a pay raise. One senior supervisor earns more than $79,000 per year. On top of that, the city pays $673 a month to lease a Toyota Tundra for him to commute back and forth from Bastrop County. The city pays for the fuel, insurance and maintenance.
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REIMBURSEMENT
The official city policy says "except for emergency call vehicles - drivers of take home vehicles must reimburse the city for all commuting miles". So is the city getting reimbursed? Nope.
According to the city's data, building inspectors and supervisors should reimburse the city an estimated $280,505 for personal commuting miles, but the department says not a cent is paid.
Li admits some employees are getting to take vehicles home as a form of extra compensation.
“Letting the supervisor take the vehicle home at this time, at this minute is a separate personnel policy,†said Li.
She added that she is working with the human resources department to try to find other ways to compensate the supervisors.
JUSTIFICATION
WPDR created a series of spreadsheets to analyze the cost benefits of allowing inspectors and supervisors to take vehicles home. The analysis looked at the number of miles and the time it would take each employee to drive from home to the office, from the office to their service area and from their service area to their home at the end of the day. Analysts compared that to the number of miles and time it would take each employee to drive directly from home to the service area, then return home.
The data considered the number of additional inspections that could be conducted if the employees did not have to return to the office at the end of the workday. Each additional inspection was given a value based on the inspectors pay rate. If the value of inspections gained exceeds the value of the extra miles spent commuting, taking home the vehicle can be considered cost effective.
The initial data showed it was not cost effective. But factoring in what's called "drop time" would change that. "Drop Time" is the time it would take for each inspector to get out of their own vehicle, grab a laptop computer and get into their city vehicle.
WPDR believes it would take each inspector a half an hour in the morning and a half an hour in the evening to swap vehicles. WPDR says if inspectors didn't have to spend this hour moving from one vehicle to the other, they could do many more inspections. This was the data presented to the city managers office the decision for allowing WPDR employees to continue to take home vehicles.
The analysis is detailed, but fails to include an option that would save taxpayers the most money.
It's the policy of most other city departments to park vehicles overnight at a city facility near an employee's service area. The sites include various city offices, police substations, fire stations and Austin Energy offices.
If WPDR adopted the same policy, the city would save an estimated 430,560 miles per year. That would equate to a savings of about 35,880 gals of fuel and ultimately thousands of taxpayer dollars each year.
But if it’s up to the departments director, that isn’t likely to happen. She not only stands by her policy, she intends to share her method of analysis that justifies it with other city departments. |
http://www.keyetv.com/content/news/investigates/story/City-of-Austin-paying-for-some-employees-daily/wwsqasWvk0WegFSKVtoeFA.cspx
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