This week West Virginia Governor Jim Justice signed House Bill 4015, which reforms West Virginia's Fleet Management Office into a permanent Fleet Management Division in the Department of Administration, and requires annual reporting and continual tracking of the state fleet.

“We think the state owns roughly $200 million in vehicles, yet no government agency can give us an accurate count of how many vehicles the state actually owns or what they’re being used for,” Chairman Howell said in a statement. “This is unacceptable, and we owe it to the taxpayers of West Virginia to require transparency and accountability in tracking the state’s vehicle fleet.”

The bill also phases out the current green and white state vehicle license plates and replaces them with gold and blue ones once the vehicle has been re-registered with the state Division of Motor Vehicles.

In addition, the bill allows the State Auditor’s Office to conduct spot compliance audits with various state agencies to check records and monitor compliance with the new law.

The fleet has been a wide topic of debate in West Virginia. In late 2016, an audit failed to identify the number of vehicles in the fleet. When Gov. Justice took office in early 2017, he vowed to get a handle of the state’s vehicles and reduced the number of vehicles within his own office.