A policy that has state employees scrambling to find cars to drive while their own vehicles sit idle has many fuming.... (full article here:)
Well here's some happy news for a Monday morning ... the State of Vermont apparently has some management and supervisory personnel who can do simple arithmetic ... and who take their management responsibilities seriously.
The state has made a fleet of "loaner" cars available to state employees and asks them to use state vehicles whenever they need to drive more than 54 miles a day on state business. Seems totally reasonable to me. A number of employees, however, are upset that the state just doesn't let them use their own vehicles to drive all the miles they want, reimbursing them $0.405 a mile for doing so. When state vehicles are all in use, Vermont negotiated a good deal with a local rent-a-car company that gives the state employees vehicles for $31 a day ... reimbursable, of course. Let's analyze for a moment just how well founded the complaints are.
First, they are annoyed that they are asked to book cars 48 hours in advance. Well, I'm not so naive that I don't know trips can't alway be pre-planned. However, I'm also know, having worked under an arrangement with the federal government for years where I could just hop in my car any time, on my own authority, and drive all I felt I needed to and then claim the mileage, that no planning often results in excessive trips. If being a state employee, with attendant benefits and salary, requires a modicum of planning, I say it's good, in the long run, for the employee's productivity and it's certainly good for the state.
Second, many of the complaints revolve around the employee giving up the use of their four wheel drive personal vehicles to "downgrade" themselves to the use of sensible, front wheel drive sedans or vans. I've written about this subject before ... 90% percent of the 4wd vehicles in this country, public or private, are status symbols. Government and commercial fleet managers who actually measure the use of 4wd under real-world conditions find that it is just not used on the vast majority of vehicles ... driving up the cost of the fleet and the cost of fuel, for sure. Employees need to separate out wants from true needs, and it sounds to me as if the leadership in Vermont is doing well at that task.
So, am I anti-employee? heck no, I was an employee, subject to management's dictates for years. But these guys and gals who are complaining out to at least be a little bit better educated as to the good deal they have. The state (in concert with the majority of other government agencies and commercial companies) reimburses 40.5 cents per mile. The true cost of driving a mid-size SUV or pickup in todays world is up to 90 cents per miles according to recent AAA surveys. And, this figure doesn't really take into account the full cost of wear and tear on the vehicle ... anyone can easily imagine the difference in comfort and appearance (and in resale value) of a private car that's say 8 years old with 40,000 miles as opposed to the same vehicle with 80 or 90,000 miles of inadequately reimbursed business miles on it.
It just makes good sense to put all that wear and tar, rock chips, salt accumulation and general degradation back on the state ... and not dive one's own car for 90 cents a mile and get back less than half in reimbursement. Kudos to the leadership of the great state of Vermont ... 49 more that can step up out there ...
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