LITTLE ROCK — Gov. Mike Beebe said Wednesday that he’s ordered a detailed review of the state’s 8,653-vehicle fleet, nearly 2,000 of which are used for commuting.
He said he’s bothered by inconsistent data from state officials and wants the Department of Finance and Administration to sort it out.
“I want to get to the bottom of what’s really necessary,” Beebe said. “We’re going to ask for justification on every vehicle, what it’s used for and why it’s necessary.”
The governor’s words come after Arkansas Democrat-Gazette articles about the number and use of the state’s vehicles and about one week after his spokesman, Matt DeCample, said that overall the governor saw no problem with the number of vehicles and was satisfied that the state had been able to produce a proper accounting.
Interactive
About 4,600 of the vehicles are in agencies that are beyond the governor’s direct authority, but spokesmen for some of agencies said they’d cooperate.
Some people in state government and politics had privately questioned why Beebe didn’t seem to be taking a more active stance on the vehicles situation. Opinion writers expressed similar sentiments.
Beebe said Wednesday that his change didn’t have anything to do with any criticism he’s received. He said Democrat-Gazette articles since DeCample spoke July 28 had raised more questions.
Beebe, a Democrat, is up for re-election this year, and his Republican challenger, Jim Keet, has described state-vehicle commuting as an “abuse.” He’s said no state employee should be allowed to commute in a state vehicle.
There are 1,065 state vehicles in Arkansas that are used for commuting, not counting law enforcement, according to data from the finance department and the state Highway and Transportation Department. When state police officers (530), highway police (94), and wildlife officers at the Game and Fish Commission (167) are added to the list, that number grows to 1,856.
Additionally, state police have about 60 and the Game and Fish Commission about 45 personnel who commute in state vehicles but who weren’t included in the initial finance department list. These employees aren’t law enforcement officers.
That brings the total to 1,961.
Beebe said he wanted to eliminate “uncertainty” as to details about the state’s vehicle fleet.
“I know it’s campaign season and campaign time,” Beebe said. “We’re trying to do our job. Period. If you do your job, the other stuff will sort itself out. I’ve been trying to do my job.”
He said he wants to know who is taking state vehicles home to commute and why.
“If someone doesn’t have a need for that and could use a pool car, we want to know that as well,” the governor said.
He said he would take “appropriate action” if administrators take state vehicles home but don’t need them for their state jobs.
Beebe declined to say how he would define whether it’s “justified” for an administrator to take a vehicle home.
“Let’s see what all their answers are first,” the governor said. “It’s going to take some time.”
Beebe said he disagrees with Keet’s saying that no commuting should be allowed.
The governor said he had no problems with law enforcement officers taking vehicles home and vehicles being taken home by others who may be called to work in the middle of the night or who have to drive directly to a job site away from an office.
“But when it’s not cheaper, then the best course of action should be to pay [employees] mileage [reimbursements],” Beebe said.
Keet didn’t return a message Wednesday.
State police spokesman Bill Sadler said that officers need to take their state vehicles home because they are “subject to call at any given moment, 24-7.” Multiple disasters happening at the same time or “active shooter situations” would require officers being called from their homes, he said.
“Does it happen every day? I’m sure there are days when it doesn’t happen,” Sadler said. “Rarely a week doesn’t go by when someone isn’t called when they may have to work a day when not scheduled to work. In law enforcement, timing is everything.”
He said personnel at the headquarters in southwest Little Rock must live within 45 miles of the office and troopers at district offices must live within the county to which they are assigned.
DeCample said that the finance department will seek information on the assignment of each vehicle, such as whether it is assigned to a particular employee or for a group of employees.
Beebe also wants to know the use of each.
He said that on Friday he asked Richard Weiss, director of the finance department, to conduct the review.
Weiss said he sent a letter Wednesday afternoon to all state agencies, institutions and offices.
“We’re going to ask them to turn around the information pretty quickly,” Weiss said.
DeCample said Beebe is setting no deadline because he realizes each agency may have varying circumstances and it’s more important to the governor to get the data right.
He said the department has an inventory of all vehicles in each department but details such as vehicle assignment and vehicle location are missing. He said he’s asking where each vehicle is kept, such as which state park or which highway district office.
Weiss said he suspects some vehicles aren’t needed. He said he believes that some vehicles are kept by agencies as “place keepers.” By that he said he means that it can be difficult to get funding to buy more vehicles unless you have an old one to trade in or sell. He said the forthcoming analysis could show that he’s wrong about that.
Many of the agencies Weiss will be seeking information from don’t answer to the governor, such as the Legislature, the Game and Fish Commission and the Highway Department.
“We are asking everybody,” Weiss said. “Some of those folks can choose whether to answer or not. It’s asking them to do quite a bit of work when they’ve got their real jobs on their plate. But I want to make sure we have the proper information. The governor wants to make sure we have the proper information.”
He said he’ll have to rely on the information that agencies and offices give him and emphasized that any data is a snapshot in time. For example, he said, fleet assignments and purchases from day to day can change the numbers.
Game and Fish Commission spokesman Nancy Ledbetter said, “Certainly if the governor wants to review this, we’ll do anything we can to help out on our end.”
Also, on Tuesday, Game and Fish Commission Chairman Craig Campbell of Little Rock said he was confident that the agency could do without some, perhaps 50 or so, of the vehicles it owns, though he described himself as ready to change his mind if further inquiry justifies doing so.
The agency has 658 vehicles.
There is also some inconsistency with how Arkansas Code Annotated 19-4-903 is applied. This law requires payment of 15 cents a mile from any employee commuting in a state vehicle if his commute is greater than 10 miles one way. It allows exemptions from this requirement for employees “required” to use state vehicles to commute.
Weiss said that employees are deemed to be “required” to commute if they receive an exemption from his office to be allowed to commute in a state vehicle.
A Highway Department spokesman, Randy Ort, said last week that the department considers all employees who commute to be “required” to commute and exempt from the 15-cent reimbursement provision.
Ort said the Highway Department doesn’t need an exemption from Weiss, and Weiss agreed.
But the Department of Human Services has five employees who commute, and four reimburse the state at 15 cents a mile for commutes.
Human Services Department spokesman Julie Munsell said her agency will work with the finance department to determine whether those employees are being properly handled.
Information for this article was contributed by Bill Simmons of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 08/05/2010