DES MOINES, IOWA - The State of Iowa is considering leasing one-third of its fleet -- 1,100 vehicles out of the State's 3,000 total units. Of the vehicles under consideration, 250 are motor pool units and 850 are assigned to user departments. The Request for Proposal (RFP) deadline for both short- and long-term leasing was  Nov. 1, and fleet expects to make a decision by March 1, 2012, according to Tim Ryburn, fleet/mail administrator for the state.

The proposal, if it is more economical, would eliminate the State-owned vehicles and replace them with short-term rentals and long-term assignments, he said.

Since Tim Ryburn was hired as fleet/mail administrator in April, he has been working to improve fleet service, quality, and customer satisfaction, with the goal of adopting private-sector practices when possible. His reasoning for the fleet changes is making sure everything is current and makes sense.

"We're viewing all our contracts. We're just knocking the dust off everything that's been in place and seeing if that's still holding up under the current conditions that we're faced with today. I think that's very important for us to be able to do that, to say that we have taken an active review," Ryburn said. "I think we play an active part of helping [user departments] keep their budget costs to a minimum. Looking at what we do and how we do it includes an assessment, like going out and getting an RFP for work and comparing our costs to make sure that is the best value."

Ryburn is also tackling fleet consolidation by looking into moving the motor pool fleet closer to the garage facility. "If they're not within close proximity, you end up having resource issues," he said. "How do you issue cars back and forth and how do you [maintain] the cars, and is that the best flow?"

Ryburn has been a state employee for 32 years, previously working in facility management. The units he manages (which excludes university, college, and DOT vehicles) are spread across the entire state.  Maintenance includes in-house garage work in Des Moines as well as partnerships with dealers across the state that perform preventive maintenance and repair work for vehicles that can't make it back to the central fleet maintenance facility, he said.

By Thi Dao

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