Finance Committee Page 15
August 3, 2016
mean it’s clear that rust didn’t happen overnight and nothing was done so we are changing the oil but not even
addressing obvious problems. | find that tremendously weird.
Mr. Kooken
| would like to point out that of the work orders showed 35 labor hours at about $900 and that was for rust
repair in 2014 and that was repaired so it could pass the state inspection back then and the pictures you saw
today are new pictures where that repaired rust is kind of out of control.
Alderman Siegel
| would argue that many of us have cars that are stored outside for long periods of time. | have 2007 vehicle
with 178,000 miles on it and it’s stored outside and | can tell you that I’ve had it up on a lift and it looks nothing
like that and I’m just wondering how a vehicle could get that rusted out with just normal storage outside. One
of the things the work orders have, which | found interesting, was the odometer reading at the point which the
vehicles are serviced. On December 12" there is service order and the odometer reads 70,827 miles. Now
there is another service order that comes in on June 12, 2015; and the odometer reading is 70,827 miles so
either the odometer has been tampered with, which clearly is illegal, and | don’t think that has happened or the
car hasn’t gone anywhere. The next service order is dated September 17, 2015; and we are up to 74,401
miles. Now we are at October 19" where it’s 74,401 and moving along to the present day where | believe we
are at about 78,000. My point is basically over a number of years we have very few miles on this car. Why are
we buying a new car when we can do a reimbursement at .57 cents per mile?
Ms. Peek
In my opinion, it’s cheaper. We have been understaffed for periods of time when it hasn’t been necessary to
put everybody out on the road at the same time. Right now we have a vacancy and we are waiting for
someone to start on the 22™ of this month. This car has broken down repeatedly and we’ve had to get staff
back. We only two years of maintenance records but we recognize that it was a problem. It doesn’t lock, the
A/C doesn’t work. It’s just not reliable and it has not gone to Concord for a very long time.
Vice Chairman Cookson
| don’t think it necessarily addresses the question that Alderman Siegel asked which was why purchase a new
vehicle at $25,000 versus reimbursing at .57 cents per mile.
Alderman Siegel
Just to clarify, | don’t have any issue with the condition of the car. | think it’s not a drivable vehicle.
Ms. Peek
In my opinion it’s more expensive to pay for somebody’s mileage and | may be wrong. We have three people
whose time is almost 75% in the field. | don’t want to limit where they go and we can also have an animal
head that needs to be transported to the state laboratory and that cannot go into personal vehicles. We do a
lot of sampling of icky stuff that does not go into personal vehicles. We thank you very much for the approval
of the other car, we really needed that as well but | think that mileage would really rack up quite quickly. | try to
be very conservative with our mileage reimbursements and | don’t want to just start spending that down.
Vice Chairman Cookson
You characterize this as the “bad” car and so that raises the question of do you currently reimburse employees
mileage because they are not using the vehicle.
