8,653 and counting

LITTLE ROCK — AT LAST count, which always seems to be changing, the State of Arkansas owns an automotive fleet totaling 8,653 different vehicles.

Eight thousand six hundred fifty three.

We think.

Because there are so many different ways to count state cars, and so many ways to exceed the not very clear legal limits, and so many different definitions of what constitutes a state car (do off-road or campus-only vehicles count?) no one can be sure just how big this armada is.

Our ever patient, ever thorough, political editor Bill Simmons tried to get a handle on the sheer number of state vehicles on the road-or off-for a story that began on Sunday’s front page and continued column after column deep inside the A section. The numbers kept on changing the longer the story went on. It was like chasing a moving target. The reader was plunged into the labyrinthine recesses of state government as the count kept changing; Franz Kafka would have been right at home.

An expert was consulted: the go-to man when it comes to the fiscal side of state government, Richard Weiss. He’s both head of the state’s Finance and Administration Department and a kind of state institution himself, complete with the kind of institutional memory that goes with long service. He had to keep updating his count as cars-and questions-multiplied.

At last a light appeared at the end of the story. It concluded that that “the count seemed to be 8,654 rather than 8,653.” A story to be continued, no doubt.

It’s hard to imagine a private company, or at least one that has to answer to its stockholders, handing out cars at such a prodigious rate. It’s a problem. And something of a mystery: Who’s got the cars, how many, and just why?

But before tackling the problem, state government needs to know just how big it is. And is there any reason or even plausible excuse for this multitude of cars provided, maintained and fueled by the taxpayer? It was hard to read the story without being appalled by the amount of tax money being spewed out of all those exhaust pipes.

It would help if just one state official were responsible for counting all these vehicles, knowing where they are, and determining whether they’re all really needed. What’s needed is a car czar to keep up with them all. What about designating somebody to do just that? So there would no longer be any doubt about the numbers or the purpose of all these vehicles.

Whoever this car czar turns out to be, he could also be responsible for suggesting ways to reduce this immense fleet to a manageable or at least definite number. It might help to ask some large company that has a reputation for economy and efficiency how it handles its cars. Wal-Mart comes immediately to mind. It might provide a useful model for the state. And the state could certainly use one at this confused and confusing point.

Oh, and one more suggestion: Make sure whoever is responsible for keeping up with each and every one of these vehicles does not have a state owned car. Arkansas already has a surplus of them.