Time to curtail car perks is now
At home, when you receive a pay cut or a pink slip, the first thing you do is scrutinize the ongoing expenses in your life - the cable bill, the grocery bill, the cell phone package, the Starbucks habit. And you cut accordingly.
Government, by virtue of its scale and lack of ownership, has never had a good track record of doing so.
Too often, essentials are cut before many of the smaller, less consequential expenditures are examined.
In its three-part Driving on Your Dime series that ends today, the Daily Herald examined the practice of giving car allowances to school and municipal leaders throughout the suburbs and in some cases giving them cars to take home - a perk that doesn't seem to be on many cost-conscious leaders' radar.
And what we found, essentially, is that in their quest to make meaningful cuts to their red ink-stained budgets, local leaders are leaving the quarters in the couch cushions.
The investigation found that 30 of 69 elementary, high school, unit and community college districts surveyed provide at least one person - and in one case 79 - a monthly stipend for car use that is not audited by mileage. The remaining 39 districts either pay by the mile for business use or not at all.
The investigation also found that of 89 municipalities surveyed, 50 provide at least one employee with a monthly car allowance. And 74 communities provide take-home cars to some administrators - about 40 percent of them for nonemergency managers. Nearly half give both stipends to some managers and take-home cars to others.
All at a time when employees are being eliminated, public services are being cut and new revenue sources are being sought.
Among the school districts, only one of the 30 that provide stipends cut back last year.
We encourage that to change in short order this year as school districts begin working on new budgets.
Many who receive the benefits say it's fair compensation for their work, whether or not it can be tied directly to the amount of driving they do for the taxpayers footing the bill. But several watchdog groups say the spending in some cases is excessive.
"The taxpayers have a right to demand an end to these perks," said Mark LaMet from the Better Government Association. "The gravy train days are over."
Indeed, they have to be.
When times are good, we expect frugality from the stewards of our tax money. In times like these, we demand it.
Car allowances are being pared back as a form of executive compensation in the private sector; it should not remain commonplace or an expectation in the public sector.
Pay an administrator what he is worth and pay him by the mile driven for business. That's the way more than half the school districts surveyed do it. That practice exhibits transparency and accountability.
And if you think the amounts don't add up to more than coins in the couch cushions when compared to a municipal or school budget, consider the image it projects when negotiating with labor unions.