Michigan Votes Forum

Introduced in the House on December 14, 2005

Click here to view bill details.

I see tax funded vehicles at the grocery store, hair dresser, etc all the time.

The cost of this (another) unfunded mandate would be more than the little bit of gas money it might save by catching unauthorized use. Most communities regulate this already, knowing that the citizens of the community are watching and paying attention to vehicle use. Most municipal vehicles are out in the community because the people they are issued to are supervisory and on immediate recall to work status, so yes, it makes sense for them to have a vehicle to drive to these callback situations as they arise.

What about small volunteer Fire Departments We are already overworked with little or no pay. This will just add more red tape to the Fire Chief and no we do not have admin. assistants to do our work for us. If their is a problem at the State level, deal with it and leave the small guy alone. Maybe the State could better spend their time supporting the local Fire service (like Pennsylvania)instead of making more un-funded mandates.

Don't you as a rep have better things to do then worry about vehicles?

Just about anything that makes government at any and every level more accountable to the public is a step in the right direction. That includes HB 5521. The only (possibly) objectionable thing here is the cost of posting information to an internet web site. The information sought is information that already should be routinely compiled by the affected agencies anyway, and so should be readily available to the public and freely provided to anyone who asks about or for it. Agencies that have not been doing this kind of thing should start doing so, regardless of how this bill fares in the legislature.

I cannot believe that State Legislators don't have better things to legislate than deciding how local governmental agencies should handle their vehicle use policies. If citizens are that concerned over use of any government vehicle, information is available to them directly from the local governmental agency. A reporting system as outlined is quite burdensome and costly to implement/maintain. State legislators should concern themselves with how they would pay local governments for maintaining such a reporting systen as The Headlee Amendment would mandate they pay.

You must not have enough to do in Lansing. Do you have any idea of what this requires? What about the Michigan DOT? How many vehicles do they have. Their use, mileage? What about DOC or other large departments? I have an ideal, don't run again for office.

I agree that local governments should control the use of their vehicles, but the reality is that many don't. I work for a midsized city in Michigan. Many times these vehicles are provided as a perk to the employee. I often find it interesting on the correlation to the distance an employee is willing to drive to the likely hood that they are driving a city owned vehicle, with city gas and city insurance. I find that many of these vehicles are unmarked so that the public can not easily monitor their use. Very few city employees really need city vehicles. It is a hidden perk.

The bill is aimed at the local governments and schools. How about the multitude of state owned vehicles that we see driving north every summer weekend? Everyone notice that the state isn't asking this of itself? Just the locals.

Amen to that.....Nothing like introducing and passing a law to affect everyone except yourself.