MESA, AZ - The City of Mesa, Ariz., was recently designated a Certified Fleet Management Operation (CFMO), and the Fleet Services Department was recognized for this distinction during a City Council meeting on Nov. 7.

The CFMO certification, managed by the Government Fleet Management Alliance (GFMA), benchmarks fleet practices against private sector companies with which the public sector group competes most directly. The certification testing process addresses twenty categories and eight foundation categories to ensure fleet management success and aims to make a fleet operation cost effective, efficient, competitive, and well managed. The CFMO program was recently acknowledged by our Mesa City Council as a "Best in Class" program.

The certification process took the city two years to complete.  According to Peter Scarafiotti , MEng, CAFM, CEM, CPFP, director & automotive engineer, Fleet Services Department, City of Mesa, one of the things the division realized early on was it lacked an adequately developed emergency plan, a requirement for the certification.

In addition, "this discipline led us to develop a warranty recovery program that provided $550,000 in savings last year. This saving allowed us to save two full-time positions that were scheduled to be dropped due to citywide downsizing due to decreases in city revenue," he added.

"We had already developed and implemented over 20 world-class benchmarks before certification, so we were on the right path. The CFMO program highlighted even more areas of opportunity for improvement," Scarafiotti stated.

The city's fleet is an ASE Blue Seal shop and is ranked No. 30 in the 100 Best Fleets program.

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