FT. WAYNE, IN – A new Allen County, Ind., vehicle policy could cut as many as 36 vehicles used as take-home cars by county employees, according to the Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette. The policy limits take-home cars to employees who put at least 10,000 miles of work-related travel on their vehicle per year. It also requires the vehicles be marked with the county seal on both sides and allows the cars to be randomly tracked with GPS devices. The commissioners approved the new policy May 18.

The commissioners had debated whether to blanket all county cars with GPS trackers or randomly track them. The commissioners hope the trackers will help manage the use of the vehicles. The GPS policy applies only to take-home cars, and the tracking is at the discretion of the commissioners or department heads. If department heads suspect the cars are being misused, they employ the devices, eliminating the expense of fleetwide tracking.

The commissioners, however, debated increasing the mileage limit from 6,000 business miles to 10,000. But of 85 take-home cars the county pays to maintain, 36 could be eliminated because their drivers put fewer than 10,000 miles on their cars for business use each year. That number would decrease with a lower limit, according to the Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette.

Other aspects of the policy state that commuter miles must not exceed business miles for take-home cars, and elected officials sworn in before Jan. 1 of this year are allowed to keep their take-home vehicle.

Even with the potential reduction in the number of take-home cars, the county maintains about 143 fleet vehicles and 100 or so other vehicles used by the sheriff’s department. County Council has called for greater reductions in the number of vehicles the county maintains. But the council supports the idea of using GPS trackers to track mileage and usage. Council members earmarked $500,000 this spring to help pay for the trackers.