Schaumburg lawmaker pushes sale of state cars
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A Schaumburg lawmaker is pushing the state to unload vehicles that didn’t log enough miles to justify keeping them in Illinois’ fleet.
Rep. Michelle Mussman, a Schaumburg Democrat, is proposing the sale of any state-owned vehicle driven less than 7,000 miles in the 2010 fiscal year.
The plan is in response to a report released in 2011 from the state’s auditor general, whose audit of the Department of Central Management Services examined the costs and use of state-owned vehicles. Based on a sample of 100 state-owned cars, 25 percent of vehicles were driven less than 7,000 miles per year, the audit showed.
State policy says a vehicle needs to be driven at least 7,000 miles per year to justify its purchase.
“If we have cars that aren’t really being used in a cost-efficient way, that’s an easy target for what we need to investigate first,” Mussman said.
There are currently about 12,000 vehicles that have been bought by the state’s chief purchasing agency for use across Illinois. That’s down more than 1,000 vehicles from when the auditor general’s report was done, said spokesman Mike Claffey.
In 2011, the state sold 1,875 vehicles through auction, and 1,198 vehicles were bought.
Claffey says Central Management Services officials have met with Mussman, and he hopes for an agreement to effectively manage the vehicle fleet.
“We’re always looking for opportunities to use our money more wisely,” Mussman said. “Let’s be much better custodians for the money which is entrusted to us.”
