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Who’s at the wheel?
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| Columbia School District Transportation Director Carol Alford said that about 25 percent of the drivers take their buses home because their routes start near where they live. This can save on fuel costs, which was around $4.60 per gallon at the beginning of the 2008-09 school year. JASON MATTHEW WALKER/Lake City Reporter |
School district and county look at ways to save on fuel costs.
By MICHAEL MITSEFF
mmitseff@lakecityreporter.com
For Columbia County Manager Dale Williams it’s the equivalent of an ongoing juggling act.
Williams and his staff have been working to stretch taxpayer dollars in the face of declining state gas and sales tax-sharing revenues, and from the implementation of
voter-approved Amendment One and its portability feature.
As part of that effort, the county recently launched a comprehensive energy audit in an effort to cut some of the fat from the meat of the county budget.
“One component of that study deals with how vehicles are used and what uses could be curtailed,” Williams said. “The county has already made some decisions and had some discussions about policy and about who should be driving home vehicles.”
Currently, there about 224 vehicles in various county departments that are fueled and maintained by the county that run the gamut from pickup trucks, firetrucks, EMS ambulances to road department graders and bulldozers among others.
Currently, only 50 vehicles have been assigned to county employees to drive home, which does not include the sheriff’s office or the county school board, which are handled separately.
Of the 50 that are driven home — and following the energy audit — only 28 vehicles were recommended for continued home use with one addition of a bucket-truck operator.
Of the county vehicles recommended for continued home use, one is the emergency management director, five from building and zoning, one in landscaping,
17 in public works (down from 30), three in the fire department and one in Emergency Medical Services (EMS).
“As it is now, Columbia County’s county-furnished transportation policy
provides that department heads determine who drives vehicles home,” Williams said. “Basically, the board is looking at a policy revision.”
Williams said that the recommendations on who should or should not continue to take vehicles home waspartly implemented by some department heads — public works being one of them — while others are waiting until the board reviews the recommendations and actually revises the county’s transportation policy.
“The vast majority of the recommendations have already been done on the initiative of the department heads,” Williams said.
In addition, vehicles driven home but that are not considered non-personal use vehicles are subject to an Internal Revenue Service taxable fringe benefit: marked and unmarked police and sheriff’s office vehicles are non-personal us vehicles.
The taxable fringe benefit is based on the interpretation of the IRS tax code, Williams said.
“It’s based on trips, the IRS code establishes a $1.50 tax for each trip to and from work, that works out to $3 per day tax for the use of the employer-furnished vehicle,” he said. The tax paid by each employee on the $3 daily taxable income is determined by that individuals tax bracket.
Adding to the need for a county wide energy audit is the nearly 100 percent increase in diesel fuel use by the road department, which uses heavy equipment road graders and bulldozers.
“In July, the road department did a budget amendment in the of amount $427,825 to make up for the anticipated shortfall in its $420,000 annual fuel budget,” Internal Auditor Judy Lewis said.
The anticipated diesel fuel costs for the year more than doubled the road department’s fuel budget, based largely on the fact that diesel reached nearly $5 per gallon at one time.
To date the department has spent $666,365.61 of that amount and Lewis anticipates the county will not spend the entire budget increase before the end of this fiscal year that ends Sept. 30.
The Columbia County Fire Department has also done a budget amendment of $15,000 added to the department’s annual budget of $60,000. As fiscal year 2007-2008 nears its end, the department will have to submit another budget amendment as its fuel costs are already running a $9,941 deficit, Lewis said.
A separate budget entity, the Columbia County School Board owns 124 school buses: 94 run a daily route and 30 are kept as spares, Transportation Director Carol Alford said.
The cost to fuel the school buses and the school board’s 48 cars, pickup trucks and vans is between $20,000 to $25,000 per week, according to Alford, which is based primarily on the cost of diesel.
“We are keeping a closer eye on fuel costs so that we can cut down on as many empty miles as possible,” Alford said.
To help cut down on empty miles not all school buses are parked at the school board compound located at U.S. 441 North and CR 25A.
“Twenty-five percent of our drivers take buses home because their routes start near their homes,” Alford said. “It depends on where they live and where their routes are located.”
Some buses are parked at particular schools near a driver’s route, such as Fort White Elementary and Columbia City Elementary, so the driver’s don’t have to drive from Fort White to pick up their bus north of Lake City and then drive back to Fort White to run their route.
“Our fuel costs were around $4.60 per gallon for diesel at the beginning of the year and we want to do our part to conserve as much as possible,” Alford said.
Ten vehicles other than buses are taken home by school board employees: Alford and two route coordinator/driver trainers, two chief mechanics drive service vehicles home and five journeyman mechanics drive service vehicles home.
Alford and the other nine employees are subject to the IRS taxable fringe benefit of $1.50 per trip, which is $3 per day.
“Sometimes at night or on weekends, we have to go out if a bus gets in an accident or breaks down transporting students during an extra-curricular activity,” Alford said. “Everyone that takes a vehicle home is on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
Alford also said most counties in Florida have a reciprocal agreement among school boards that states if a county school bus breaks down in their county, they will attempt to repair it.
Sheriff Bill Gootee said that fuel costs for his office for this fiscal year were budgeted at $428,846 with no increase needed so far for its 141 vehicles — 103 are driven home.
Gootee said that in attempting to reduce fuel costs, the maintenance department has switched to buying synthetic oil in bulk, which has increased fuel mileage and has “lessened the wear and tear on the vehicles,” Gootee said.
“Anytime that you have officers taking cars home, one of the advantages is having the ability to go into service right away, also having the vehicles parked in the neighborhoods has a deterrent factor.”
Gootee also said that where possible, deputies are assigned patrol areas as close to their homes as possible to help conserve fuel.
Williams and his staff have been working to stretch taxpayer dollars in the face of declining state gas and sales tax-sharing revenues, and from the implementation of
voter-approved Amendment One and its portability feature.
As part of that effort, the county recently launched a comprehensive energy audit in an effort to cut some of the fat from the meat of the county budget.
“One component of that study deals with how vehicles are used and what uses could be curtailed,” Williams said. “The county has already made some decisions and had some discussions about policy and about who should be driving home vehicles.”
Currently, there about 224 vehicles in various county departments that are fueled and maintained by the county that run the gamut from pickup trucks, firetrucks, EMS ambulances to road department graders and bulldozers among others.
Currently, only 50 vehicles have been assigned to county employees to drive home, which does not include the sheriff’s office or the county school board, which are handled separately.
Of the 50 that are driven home — and following the energy audit — only 28 vehicles were recommended for continued home use with one addition of a bucket-truck operator.
Of the county vehicles recommended for continued home use, one is the emergency management director, five from building and zoning, one in landscaping,
17 in public works (down from 30), three in the fire department and one in Emergency Medical Services (EMS).
“As it is now, Columbia County’s county-furnished transportation policy
provides that department heads determine who drives vehicles home,” Williams said. “Basically, the board is looking at a policy revision.”
Williams said that the recommendations on who should or should not continue to take vehicles home waspartly implemented by some department heads — public works being one of them — while others are waiting until the board reviews the recommendations and actually revises the county’s transportation policy.
“The vast majority of the recommendations have already been done on the initiative of the department heads,” Williams said.
In addition, vehicles driven home but that are not considered non-personal use vehicles are subject to an Internal Revenue Service taxable fringe benefit: marked and unmarked police and sheriff’s office vehicles are non-personal us vehicles.
The taxable fringe benefit is based on the interpretation of the IRS tax code, Williams said.
“It’s based on trips, the IRS code establishes a $1.50 tax for each trip to and from work, that works out to $3 per day tax for the use of the employer-furnished vehicle,” he said. The tax paid by each employee on the $3 daily taxable income is determined by that individuals tax bracket.
Adding to the need for a county wide energy audit is the nearly 100 percent increase in diesel fuel use by the road department, which uses heavy equipment road graders and bulldozers.
“In July, the road department did a budget amendment in the of amount $427,825 to make up for the anticipated shortfall in its $420,000 annual fuel budget,” Internal Auditor Judy Lewis said.
The anticipated diesel fuel costs for the year more than doubled the road department’s fuel budget, based largely on the fact that diesel reached nearly $5 per gallon at one time.
To date the department has spent $666,365.61 of that amount and Lewis anticipates the county will not spend the entire budget increase before the end of this fiscal year that ends Sept. 30.
The Columbia County Fire Department has also done a budget amendment of $15,000 added to the department’s annual budget of $60,000. As fiscal year 2007-2008 nears its end, the department will have to submit another budget amendment as its fuel costs are already running a $9,941 deficit, Lewis said.
A separate budget entity, the Columbia County School Board owns 124 school buses: 94 run a daily route and 30 are kept as spares, Transportation Director Carol Alford said.
The cost to fuel the school buses and the school board’s 48 cars, pickup trucks and vans is between $20,000 to $25,000 per week, according to Alford, which is based primarily on the cost of diesel.
“We are keeping a closer eye on fuel costs so that we can cut down on as many empty miles as possible,” Alford said.
To help cut down on empty miles not all school buses are parked at the school board compound located at U.S. 441 North and CR 25A.
“Twenty-five percent of our drivers take buses home because their routes start near their homes,” Alford said. “It depends on where they live and where their routes are located.”
Some buses are parked at particular schools near a driver’s route, such as Fort White Elementary and Columbia City Elementary, so the driver’s don’t have to drive from Fort White to pick up their bus north of Lake City and then drive back to Fort White to run their route.
“Our fuel costs were around $4.60 per gallon for diesel at the beginning of the year and we want to do our part to conserve as much as possible,” Alford said.
Ten vehicles other than buses are taken home by school board employees: Alford and two route coordinator/driver trainers, two chief mechanics drive service vehicles home and five journeyman mechanics drive service vehicles home.
Alford and the other nine employees are subject to the IRS taxable fringe benefit of $1.50 per trip, which is $3 per day.
“Sometimes at night or on weekends, we have to go out if a bus gets in an accident or breaks down transporting students during an extra-curricular activity,” Alford said. “Everyone that takes a vehicle home is on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
Alford also said most counties in Florida have a reciprocal agreement among school boards that states if a county school bus breaks down in their county, they will attempt to repair it.
Sheriff Bill Gootee said that fuel costs for his office for this fiscal year were budgeted at $428,846 with no increase needed so far for its 141 vehicles — 103 are driven home.
Gootee said that in attempting to reduce fuel costs, the maintenance department has switched to buying synthetic oil in bulk, which has increased fuel mileage and has “lessened the wear and tear on the vehicles,” Gootee said.
“Anytime that you have officers taking cars home, one of the advantages is having the ability to go into service right away, also having the vehicles parked in the neighborhoods has a deterrent factor.”
Gootee also said that where possible, deputies are assigned patrol areas as close to their homes as possible to help conserve fuel.
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Interesting wrote on Sep 14, 2008 7:44 AM: