A utilization audit of the State of West Virginia fleet found that it has the highest minimum mile requirement of the 10 states reviewed. The state’s minimum utilization is set at 1,100 miles per month — 13,200 annually — but auditors said the Department of Administration was unable to provide information on how or why this number was set.

Auditors from the Legislative Post Audit Division surveyed the utilization of nine additional states — those bordering West Virginia, states that are largest and smallest in square miles, and one state with comparable square miles. Utilization minimums for these states range from 5,000 to 12,000 miles annually, and a few used a break-even analysis based on class of vehicle. Break-even mileage is the point at which the cost of providing a state vehicle equals the state’s cost for reimbursing employees for use of a personal vehicle.

In one example, the Commonwealth of Virginia had different mileage requirements based on class, ranging from 8,000 miles for compact cars to 11,000 miles for 4X4 pickup trucks.

The Fleet Management Office (FMO) is working on collecting mileage data to determine utilization. It stated it now has the software to collect this data more thoroughly and in real time.

The report also included a lengthy case study of the State of Pennsylvania’s fleet reduction — the state improved utilization and reduced its fleet by 26.1%.

In addition, the report stated that the FMO listed the state fleet total at 7,529; however, this is not an all-inclusive list because not all agencies report the vehicle inventory to the FMO. The FMO data shows there is one vehicle for every five employees on average — the Administration cabinet averaged 14.58 employees per vehicle while Commerce averaged 1.66 employees per vehicle.  

The auditor provided the data for information purposes and “is not opining that there are too many vehicles or that some departments or agencies have too many vehicles,” the report stated.

Various West Virginia agencies have announced cuts to their fleets in the past few weeks.