The City Council is considering starting a program to provide police patrol officers with take home cars, but there appears to be confusion about the cost.
The City Council discussed the program at the May 25 work session where they were provided with details on what the program would cost.
However, those figures are easily misinterpreted because they combine the costs to both the Greensboro Police Department and the Equipment Services Fund.
Greensboro Police cars are actually owned by the Equipment Services Department and leased to the Police Department. The lease payment is designed to cover both the replacement cost and maintenance of the vehicle. However, the payment from the Police Department to the Equipment Services Department is simply a transfer of money from one department to another and not an actual cost to the city.
The chart provided to the City Council is not, as some assumed, the actual cost to the city. In fact, the title of the chart is “Current Cash Flow Estimate to Purchase and Maintain 20 New Police Vehicles Per Year for 5 Years.”
“Cash Flow” is not the synonymous with cost to the city.
For instance, the cash flow chart includes the $850,000 cost of buying the vehicles, plus the $310,300 cost of equipping the vehicles as police cars for a total cost to the city for 20 police cars of $1,160,300.
But the cash flow chart also includes the annual lease payment from the Police Department to the equipment services department of $198,480, which is an internal payment from one city department to another and not an actual cost to the city.
The cash flow chart includes $64,610 to hire an additional technician to maintain the vehicles. There is no way a full-time technician can be kept busy maintaining 20 brand new vehicles.
Plus, the cost of maintaining the vehicles is covered in the lease payment from the Police Department to the equipment services department.
It appears the cost to the city for 20 new police vehicles in the first year would be $1,160,300 and not the “total estimated cost” on the cash flow chart of $1,423,390.
And in year five of the program, the total cost to the city would be $1,444,374 and not the $2,683,189 listed on the cash flow chart, which includes the annual lease payment of $219,280 for each of the five years.
The City Council discussed the take home car program as if the cash flow chart indicated the cost to the city and not the accounting method in which that cost would be covered.
The actual cost to the city would be far less than the cash flow chart seems to indicate.
Voodoo economics. Would standard accepted accounting practices be too much to ask?
What is the actual purpose for taking a patrol car home . Wouldn’t that be the same as a raise to those 20 officers and just added wear and tear on 20 vehicles to the cost.
It’s been proven with research that taking cars home adds to the visibility of protection in the neighborhoods in which the officer lives. They can, and do, talk to the community a lot more than those just responding to calls, in effect, being the voice of the police in their neighborhood. It also reduces the cost of operating a vehicle 24 hrs a day for 365 days in a year.
It actually lessens the wear and tear. In a shared fleet, which is what they have now, cars are used 7 days a week, sometimes twice a day. In an assigned fleet, the car is only used by the one officer and only on their work days. Additionally, if a car is assigned to the individual, they are much more likely to take care of it since it is the only car they have access to.
Like I have said elsewhere, the benefit is largely to the officer because they do not have to drive their personal car to and from work everyday. It’s similar to a company car, but with some benefit to the city, such as allowing the officer to start taking calls right from their house. Regardless, every other city in the surrounding area offers that benefit except GPD. So for the most part, it needs to be implemented to make GPD competitive in the job market.
It provides an incentive to keeping and also hiring new officers. It also provides more high visibility in neighborhoods they live in, which in return can help deter crime. It can also cut down on response times because now officers won’t have to respond from the department. Also, many studies have shown that take home programs lower the cost to tax payers because the vehicles are better taken care of, therefore extending there longevity and resale. That is the reason most every other agency has the take home program. Greensboro is just behind the curb as usual.
If this goes through, will the city garage once again use Police Officer with mechanical skills to help assemble the cars as they have in the past, and bill the Police Department for work the garage did not do, as they have in the past?
Yes. The Patton garage is the biggest scam the city has going.
You are only scratching the surface here, John. The Equipment Services Fund (ESF) is the biggest sham that ever was. GPD’s budget for vehicles is required to go to Patton’s ESF. They no say in how that money is spent because it is all assigned to “leases” on all of the agency’s vehicles. The “lease” is on top of the vehicle purchase price that is also paid for by the GPD the first time a car is added to the fleet. Then the “lease” money is used to pay for future replacements as well as upkeep for the vehicle’s lifespan. Trouble is that if a car lasts longer than expected, Patton does not cut off the lease. The agency has to continue to pay, no matter how long the car lasts. And guess what Patton does. They continually postpone replacements so they can keep making that bank. Then, when when a car has finally outlived its usefulness, Patton sells the car at the auto auction and they keep the money in the Patton fund, not the GPD fund. They also strip the vehicle of all reusable police gear and dump it into the next car while still charging GPD for the “new” equipment. GPD is also forced to use Patton and a few select vendors to do basic work like oil changes, etc. GPD itself has no say in where they can go to take care of these basic functions, even if they can find a better deal somewhere. It’s time to start letting GPD spend its vehicle budget the way they see fit. Unfortunately, like any good mafia, once you’re in, there is no getting out.