Posted on 01/03/2009 5:04:15 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
January 2, 2009
Workers Ordered to Give Up City-Owned Cars
By MICHAEL BARBARO
Economic hard times are about to hit New York City’s employees where it hurts: in their driveways.
As the Bloomberg administration scrambles to cut spending, it is ordering city agencies like the police, parks and health departments to give up nearly 700 city-owned cars, a cherished perk for their workers.
The move would save $20 million over the next two years, according to a copy of the memorandum sent to city agencies.
The decision to sell off scores of Toyota Prius cars and Ford Escape sport utility vehicles is very likely to irritate many city workers, who use the them to travel around the city inspecting sites or rushing to meetings. But it would help blunt criticism that City Hall practices a form of vehicular hypocrisy, telling ordinary New Yorkers to use mass transportation while at times clogging the streets with its own city-issued cars.
City agencies must relinquish at least 10 percent, or about 685, of their 6,800 nonemergency vehicles by the end of March, according to the memo from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, which was sent on Wednesday and obtained by The New York Times.
And they must cut their overall vehicle expenses by roughly another 5 percent, either by relinquishing more cars or cutting down on fuel or maintenance costs, the memo said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Ping!
I bet the Mayor and the Councilors don’t lose their cars. It will only be the little guys at the bottom of the heap that do all the work: the Ants, as they are sometimes called.
I wonder who the city will sell them to? Friends and family most likely.
It would be fun to pick up a first-generation Toyota Prius to tinker with. I will have to watch to see where these cars go.
This is a good move, needless to say. Government cars are one of the biggest wastes around.
Doesn’t NYC have “the best” public transit system in the country? Why should any public officials have a car?
Not sure I understand the "sell off" angle. Fleet vehicles are generally leased. Part of the value of the vehicle is added to the users income during the year. He then has to declare it on his taxes, decreasing the added income through the amount of business use. Some programs don't allow for personal use at all.
I doubt the city "owns" these vehicles so how a sell off would work needs explanation. Perhaps they've worked out a deal with the leasing company.
NYC doesn’t need a tax write-off. So maybe they own the fleet or if it is leased then maybe the lease on the 700 vehicles is up at the deadline mentioned.
With government-owned vehicles, the vehicle is typically owned or leased by a government, and the employee is given use of the vehicle for official business. Stretching the definition of “official business” to include anything and everything is a major preoccupation of government employees everywhere.
If the vehicle is to be gotten rid of, it will either be sold off, usually though one of the well-established vehicle auction houses, or returned to the leasing company. I doubt any takers for the first-generation Toyota Priuses (Prii?) are out there, so the leasing company would probably sell them off.
It’s enlightening and amazing to see all the frivolous city and state expenses which are revealed when cuts are necessary.
It’d be hard to find a state of federal agency that would be harmed by a 10 percent cut.
Yes, but what does the leasing contract say about early termination? I had a leased company vehicle when I was downsized. We were given the option of buying out the lease, otherwise the company would have to settle the lease (I had two years to go). I was cleared to use the vehicle as trade in on a vehicle of my choice. The trade in covered the lease plus gave me a nice down payment on my new vehicle.
As carumba writes, it may be these 700 vehicles are near term on their lease. That would make the most sense. It's just that the story doesn't go into much detail (why am I surprised?).
I worked in Rockaway Beach, a peninsula at the far south end of the city. If I had to go to a meeting in the Bronx I could have taken public transportation - buses and subways. Travel time each way would have been two to three hours, depending on time of day and connections.
I could drive the same distance in less than an hour.
If Bloomie really wants to save the city some money, he knows where he has to go: health care and pension bennies.
The decision to sell off scores of Toyota Prius cars and Ford Escape sport utility vehicles is very likely to irritate many city workers, who use the them to travel around the city inspecting sites or rushing to meetings.
The decision to sell off scores of Toyota Prius cars and
Ford Escape sport utility vehicles is very likely to
irritate many city workers, who us them to sleep and vist friends and relitives with. there fixed.
If 685 of 6800 will save $20 million, I say relinquish them all and save almost $200 million.
Am I the only one seeing a further savings here???
Government vehicles don’t work that way. If they are leased, and most often they are not, they would go back to the leasing company. Much more likely they are purchased, and they will just be sold.
One thing is for certain, they hardly ever get turned over to the government employee who was driving them. They are not considered a perq or compensation in the same way vehicles are in the private sector.
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