Some Erie County officials are calling for change after an audit revealed weak oversight and gaps in policy for the more than 1,300 vehicles it owns and maintains on the public's dime.
“There's a lot of poor record keeping there. There are records and lists that don't reconcile with other lists," said Erie County Comptroller Kevin Hardwick. "There's lot of gasoline that's being used that isn't properly accounted for, and there are a lot of people with take home vehicles.”
Hardwick's outlining just a few of the issues his office found when conducting an audit of the county’s vehicle fleet. An audit that is gaining attention from county legislators on both sides of the aisle, like Amherst Democrat Jeanne Vinal.
“There’s no accountability there," said Vinal. "It's an expense that's to the county, especially some of the take home vehicles that have guns in them.”
Likewise, Republican Minority Leader John Mills has concerns as well.
"The findings reveal serious issues in fleet management and oversight that warrant our attention in the legislature," said Mills. "The taxpayers of Erie County deserve accountability."
365 vehicles could not be located or verified due to lack of records, thousands of gallons of fuel had been dispensed using pin numbers of employees after they retired or left the job, and of 775 active vehicles reviewed by the comptroller’s office – just 67% are equipped with a GPS device. The Erie County Legislature voted to install those in all county vehicles following a 2016 whistleblower complaint related to employee fuel theft.
“Many of the controls had been disabled, and anybody could come up and fuel any vehicle if they wanted to, the way things are being administered," said Hardwick. "That's not to say that they are. We didn't find evidence of that. But the problem is that the possibility is there.”
According to Mills' office, the county's fuel management software Gasboy recorded 14,503 more transactions from year to year. But yet, reported mileage decreased in the millions of miles range. Discrepancies like this he finds alarming. This is compounded by the finding that certain county employees had been receiving an IRS tax benefit they may not had been eligible for.
Hardwick’s making major recommendations to county leaders that policies need revising to remove ambiguity, and strengthen controls to improve accountability.
While Erie County does have a vehicle fleet manager, that job does not have centralized authority. Leaving oversight and management up to some individual departments. In the case of the sheriff’s office, they supplied a limited amount of data for the audit, citing deputy safety.
“I mean, if we're going to have a Bureau of Fleet Services, if we're going to have a fleet manager, then the fleet manager ought to be managing the fleet," Hardwick said. "That's not happening now and again, some of the fault may lie in the policy, but even under the current policy, I think we could be doing a lot more than than we are doing,”
Legislators are expected to discuss the vehicle fleet issue in January.
