Harford County will no longer hang on to a 10-year-old car with high mileage and higher maintenance bills. It will consolidate usage of its more than 1,000 vehicles among departments and trim as many vehicles from its fleet as practical.
The new fleet management plan takes effect July 1, with $11 million budgeted for the purchase of 202 new vehicles and to help county agencies make the transition from owners of vehicles and equipment to lessors.
Fleet management gives ownership of the property - everything from cars and trucks to bulldozers and trailers - to the Department of Procurement. Bringing all vehicles under the purview of one department offers a centralized management and better utilization of the entire fleet, said Deborah Henderson, county director of procurement.
Each county agency will then lease what it needs from the fleet through the procurement office. The term "lease" might be misleading, she said.
"It is not that we are going out and leasing our entire fleet from Hertz," Henderson said. "We will put ownership under fleet management and look at this from a countywide perspective. Each department will lease equipment from us. There will be a motor pool rather than permanently assigned vehicles."
Much of the county's 1,047 vehicles are old and cost more than they are worth to maintain, she said. The management plan will allow for replacement of vehicles and various pieces of equipment this year with a five-year window for repayment of those purchases.
The considerable savings on maintenance costs will free up funds for future acquisitions, officials said.
"The idea is to hold a vehicle for less time and sell it while it still has value," said Warren Patrick, fleet manager. "Then, we buy replacements at wholesale prices, by piggybacking our purchases with a large consortium, like the state."
A recent study has uncovered other cost-saving opportunities, including a sharing of vehicles and the downsizing of the numbers of cars in several areas, said Henderson, whose department will go from three cars to one, which several employees will use as needed.
"We have found a lot of equipment can be shared," she said. "Vehicles that are underutilized can be made available to more than one department. The dump trucks the highway department uses for snow removal in winter can help parks and rec with ball field maintenance in the spring."
