Buying a $4 mochachino every day when you can?t make rent does not make sense. Neither do job perquisites for county employees that should not exist even in flush budget times.
That?s why we applaud Howard County Executive Ken Ulman, a Democrat, for requesting a survey of the number of take-home vehicles issued to county employees and how frequently they are used.
His initiative should spur Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon and elected officials around the state and country to start scrutinizing and cutting their own budgets. We know Howard is not the only jurisdiction with fat to trim with boom times over.
An Examiner report yesterday noted 141 employees in the county receive take-home cars, not including 40 assigned to deputies, one to the sheriff and 244 to police officers. One employee logged more than 35,000 miles, and three others pushed 30,000. At current gas prices, that means those employees would cost the county more than $22,000 in fuel alone this year if they maintained the same mileage. High mileage also means cars must be replaced more frequently, raising the overall cost of maintaining the county fleet.
We do not begrudge employees who use city vehicles for essential city services including law enforcement and housing inspections. But why should taxpayers finance Sheriff James Fitzgerald?s jaunts to Ocean City on weekends and trips to New Jersey to buy guns? Or what about those employees who work in Howard and live in other counties, racking up lots of miles on trips to and from home?
The rest of us must pump and pay for our own gas and cannot turn to county expense accounts to mitigate rising fuel costs.
We would suggest Ulman start the review of county vehicle policy with his own inner circle. He gave cars to IT Director Ira Levy and to Housing Director Stacy Spann when they were appointed in December of 2006. Neither position came with a car prior to their appointments.
We would also suggest he review county staffing to ensure he could not trim more than 15 positions as requested in his proposed 2009 operating budget or add fewer than 43 planned new positions, many of which respond to demand created by the housing boom that no longer exists.
Nothing is more effective than leading by example.
