To say the last few years have been difficult for city and county governments across the U.S. is like saying Hurricane Katrina caused a little flooding along the Gulf Coast. However, fiscal problems are not new to city and county fleet managers, most of whom now find themselves entering a third budgetary cycle brightly highlighted with cuts to capital funds for vehicle replacement, as well as slashed operating expenses.
The secret to maintaining service levels without going over budget is a combination of thoroughly analyzing the size and capabilities of the fleet versus the demands of the various departments, buying quality merchandise and performing proper maintenance. “We're doing a number of things to control costs across the board,” says Douglas Weichman, director of the Palm Beach County, Fla., fleet management division. “We're cutting our capital outlays for new equipment, stretching equipment replacement cycles, reducing the size of our fleet based on utilization rates, reducing fuel consumption, extending maintenance intervals — the works,” he says. “We've even had to lay some people off, though all of the other cost control measures are helping us avoid doing more of that.”
To cut capital outlays for new equipment, Weichman's department analyzed the entire fleet last year to determine which vehicles needed replacing and which ones could go another year or two. The end result: an $8 million reduction in the normal $20 million annual capital budget for new equipment.“We also went through the fleet and gauged utilization rates, as the economic downturn is resulting in reduced services in many departments,” Weichman says. For example, Palm Beach County's Parks and Recreation Department reduced mowing operations from four times a month to two. Across the county, such operational shrinkage allowed Weichman to trim 300 pieces of equipment from the county's 4,500-unit fleet.
As a result, money earmarked for vehicle purchases was returned to the departments. “Each department within the county got back millions that originally would've paid for new trucks and equipment,” Weichman says. “It helps them in the short term, but we can't keep doing that. At some point, the age of the fleet catches up to you, and you start spending more money on fuel and maintenance as a result.”
