Inaccurate & Incomplete Audit, Repeated Misrepresentations Create False Picture of How Department Operates
Bureau of Fleet Services Called on Carpet for Actions Taken by Other Departments
ERIE COUNTY, NY— Erie County Commissioner of Public Works William Geary, Jr. and Erie County Bureau of Fleet Services Manager Joseph Mirabelli today issued an update on the status of the Erie County vehicle fleet (“Fleet”), which has been the focus of considerable misinformation and inaccurate reporting following the release of a departmental audit from the Office of the Erie County Comptroller (“the Audit”). The Department of Public Works (“DPW”) flagged several inconsistencies with the audit and is setting the record straight about how the fleet operates.
Commissioner of Public Works Bill Geary said, “The recent audit did not provide an accurate snapshot of day-to-day fleet operations, made references to ‘missing vehicles’ that are indeed NOT missing, and left Fleet holding the bag for decisions that were made in the offices of other elected officials or on issues that we were not aware of. While there were some fueling issues to clean up and other administrative items to address, these are manageable and will be completed. It becomes a problem when inaccurate ‘information’ is reported, so we want to correct that misinformation.”
The fleet is comprised of all the vehicles in the county’s inventory, spread amongst several departments and the offices of four elected officials, and contains hundreds of vehicles in the inventory. In addition to Public Works, Emergency Services, and Sewerage, county fleet vehicles are also used in the following departments: Board of Elections, Buildings & Grounds, Central Police Services, DISS, Environment & Planning, Health, Parks, Probation, Purchasing, Social Services, Weights & Measures, and Youth Detention. Other vehicles can also be found in the Sheriff’s Department, the District Attorney’s Office, and the Clerk’s Office. Some of these vehicles are take home vehicles, governed by take home policies in each department. Other vehicles are used for road construction, emergency response, public safety/health tasks, or the like.
Chief among DPW’s concerns about the Audit is a “finding” that hundreds of vehicles are missing/unaccounted for from the county fleet, which is false and only requires an understanding of how automotive leases work to reconcile. The Bureau of Fleet Services maintains a perpetual inventory system and plans lease renewals in advance, while the Fleet Manager schedules vehicles for replacement by adding the “new” vehicles to the fleet listing and noting the vehicles to be replaced. For example, the Bureau of Fleet Services may know in November that it will be replacing a set number of vehicles in February of the following year; this is several months before actual trade-in occurs and the new vehicle is considered active. In this way vehicles are constantly moving in and out of the county fleet.
Commissioner Geary added, “The Lease spreadsheet is maintained by the Office of the Comptroller and the lack of reconciliation among the leased vehicles is due to timing. As the fleet has a perpetual inventory, capturing inventory information at one specific point in time as the Comptroller did doesn’t reflect the reality of what vehicles are physically present in the fleet. “Geary continued, “The reality is that all fleet vehicles that are supposed to be here are here.”
Other audit findings concerning to Fleet involve county personnel’s use of take-home vehicles and the county EKOS/Gasboy fueling system. The audit found inconsistencies such as inadequate authorizations and recordkeeping in the take-home vehicle system while inadequate controls, oversight and recordkeeping in the EKOS/Gasboy system were flagged.
Most of the County’s fleet is utilized as needed for work purposes and then returned to a centralized location after use, and county vehicles are typically used no more than a standard work shift. However, in some cases, employees are assigned 24-Hour Take-Home Vehicles based on operational needs such as employees who need to be available for deployment in emergency situations, employees who are required to be “on-call” and perform on-call services with a substantial degree of frequency, and for employees in law enforcement due to security reasons. The determination of 24-Hour Take-Home Vehicle privileges rests with the County Executive and the individual department head or officer, not the Bureau of Fleet Services.
“The audit noted thatthat various departments had not notified Fleet Services when the need for or the status of a 24-Hour Take-Home Vehicle changed, but the responsibility for that notification rests with each department or office, not with Fleet. When annual recertification forms are sent to division heads there is a reminder that they are to notify us in the event of any changes, but that does not always happen,” said Commissioner Geary. “In order to improve accountability with take-home vehicles we will be installing AVL’s on all vehicles that do not currently have them and reviewing all records in the inventory to ensure that the correct personnel, vehicles, and procedures are in place.”
Fleet will also be taking measures to improve efficiency and recordkeeping with the EKOS/Gasboy system. “The Bureau of Fleet Services will review the County fleet inventory for accuracy in assigned fuel fob numbers, consistent naming formats, and valid vehicle identifiers to standardize data entry. We will generate procedures for departmental and office usage to encourage the monitoring and reconciliation of fuel fobs, odometer readings, and fuel transactions,” said Commissioner Geary. “This will strengthen our process and limit the possibility of improper fueling.”
Geary concluded, “While the audit contained data that was outside of its stated scope, included comments based on assumptions rather than concrete evidence, and held Fleet accountable for actions taken by others, we will still use this to improve the operations of the Erie County fleet.”
For more information:
On the Erie County Department of Public Works, visit https://www3.erie.gov/dpw/
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