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City, county looking for ways to pay for pain at the pump
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[06/22/08]
By Lauchlin Fields and Danny Barrett Jr.
Taxpayer dollars are going into the tank — literally — when it comes to fuel costs for local government.
Changing the habits of drivers employed by the City of Vicksburg is the first step in a long list of changes the Board of Mayor and Aldermen hope will become a citywide green initiative.
The move to curb gasoline usage comes almost two months after the board was forced to amend the budget, approved in September, to allot more funds for gasoline in most city departments. About $245,000 was pulled from the administrative services budget category and divvied among 14 departments. The increase in the budget means one mill of the city’s 35-mill tax rate — about 3 percent — is now going toward gasoline.
In Warren County, where budget amendments are rare, it is all but certain costs in 2008-09 will rocket past the $427,850 spent this year.
Road Department spending on fuel is expected to increase nearly 80 percent, to $412,000 from $260,000 this year, Road Manager Richard Winans said.
Winans said his crews have modified daily routines, taking as many shorter routes from one site to the next as possible. It’s a move meant to maximize precious diesel fuel, but he assured it will not affect the pace of road paving in the county, driven by condition ratings and traffic counts.
“(Paving) is all based on priority anyway,” Winans said. Driver-consciousness remains the county’s only initiative to cut costs, in typically stark contrast to the city’s more initiative-driven approach.
That initiative has a motto: “Changing the way we do business.” It has been Mayor Laurence Leyens’s motto on moving forward without burdening taxpayers and cutting services, which is the story in Canton and other cities across the country, where police have been forced to cut back on patrolling.
While Leyens said the city has no plans to change the level of services, officials have begun making changes, which includes a recent mandate of “no idling” on most city vehicles. The city has also been working to centralize the public works department to cut down on commuting, he added.
“We want to see if we can be smart about our use of energy,” he said.
City purchasing director Tim Smith has been looking at weekly reports of gasoline usage for the 238 cars and trucks the city owns and maintains to see how employees can cut down on trips to the pumps. Area gasoline prices have climbed to as much as $3.91 for regular unleaded and are expected to exceed $4 by the end of the summer. Even though Vicksburg buys bulk and doesn’t pay state or federal taxes of 37.2 cents per gallon on gasoline, wholesale prices are rising above anticipated budgets.
The cost to fuel city vehicles has risen from $62,003 within a fourweek period last summer to $76,486 during the same time period this year, an increase of $14,483, Smith said. Although the increase is blamed on the higher cost of gasoline, employees seem to be avoiding gasoline conservation efforts, Smith indicated. He is currently tracking the miles per gallon each vehicle receives and comparing it to averages from the manufacturer. He said lower gas mileage on vehicles driven by city employees means something needs to be done.
“If it continually stays low, there are some habits that need to be changed,” he said. “They need to stop idling their vehicles or stop having a heavy foot around town.”
For the past month, Smith has looked closely at weekly reports from FuelMan, a state contracted fuel service. The service, which is offered at many local gas stations, as well as places across the state, allows city and county employees to get the discounted gas. It also keeps a record of how many miles per gallon each vehicle is getting.
For instance, Leyens’ 2008 Ford Crown Victoria, purchased by the city Aug. 15, 2007, charted 10 miles to the gallon last month, as opposed to the 14 mpg in-town miles the manufacturer claims. Because the car Leyens’ drives has a police package, it does not have what would be considered “good” gas mileage. But, he contends he does not use it often.
“I only have 3,900 miles on it, and it’s a police cruiser. I got it in case they needed another police car,” he said. “I don’t use it a lot. I live a block away, so I mainly use it if I’m going to Jackson for a meeting. But, I don’t drive it a lot, and it doesn’t get good gas mileage.”
Board President Richard George said 2008 Ford and Dodge pickups used by fellow supervisors and the Road Department have averaged 15.8 miles per gallon, slightly ahead of EPA ratings. Supervisors use them to conduct county business, which extends to attending out-of-town conferences.
Supervisors David McDonald and William Banks drove county trucks to this week’s Mississippi Association of Supervisors annual conference in Gulfport, while Bill Lauderdale and Charles Selmon drove personal vehicles. If a supervisor drives a private car, they pay full price for their own gas and file for reimbursement.
“It’s actually cheaper for us to take county trucks because we’d have to be reimbursed the full amount if not,” McDonald said.
North Ward Alderman Michael Mayfield drives a 2003 Crown Victoria, which, last month, pulled in 13 mpg, lower than its factory claim of 18 mpg. While most city employees’ vehicles are below the average, Smith said, South Ward Alderman Sid Beauman had 18.2 mpg on his 2002 Dodge Durango, which is better than the 15 mpg average placed on the sports utility vehicle.
At the request of the board, Smith is looking at any and every way the city can cut corners to conserve energy, Leyens said. Smith plans to report his findings on FuelMan to the board so suggestions may be made to department heads about how to cut down on gasoline usage.
He will also receive sealed bids at Wednesday’s city board meeting on mini trucks, vehicles that get between 40 and 60 miles to the gallon and are touted as being energy-efficient. The city plans to purchase two, two-door trucks for $5,000 each and two four-door trucks at $9,000 each. They will be used mostly in the landscaping and cemetery departments, officials have said. Leyens also has mentioned trading in police cruisers, which are known to guzzle gas, for energy-efficient scooters. In the meantime, however, he said Police Chief Tommy Moffett has agreed to replace half the force’s fleet with smaller cars that get between 30 and 35 miles to the gallon. Smith said he hasn’t yet received a request to purchase any additional vehicles for the police department, which has a fleet comprised of 32 Chevrolet Impalas and a number of Crown Victorias. The department originally budgeted $190,000 for gas this year. In April, they received an increase of $60,000 to bring the gas budget to $250,000. In the county, Sheriff Martin Pace sees “no doubt” that his department will ask for more money to cover gasoline for deputies running 618 square miles of county roads — a haul Pace thinks of as “the linear equivalent of here to St. Louis.”
But, even as needed funds likely will exceed last year’s $135,000, county residents shouldn’t expect cutbacks in service.
“One of the most important components of crime prevention is police presence and minimal response time for calls service,” Pace said. “For this reason we are not cutting back on patrol coverage,” Pace said.
The commitment will come at a price, as costs are escalating for the department’s 48 vehicles, which average 15 miles per gallon.
Pace said $133,802 has been spent so far this year on fuel, oil changes and routine maintenance, up from $99,200 at this point last year. Budget requests have risen by $15,000 in the past three years and figure to rise again.
For the city, cutting corners isn’t limited to gasoline. Smith is working with officials to find ways to, eventually, switch light bulbs across the city to those that burn longer. He also is looking at the payback of converting all city buildings to solar power.
“We want to make some initiatives” to save energy and money, Leyens said.
For the county, going green means simply having to deal with shelling out more money.
“We’re in the same boat as everyone else,” George said. “We still suffer from the same malady with the radical increases in cost.”
Changing the habits of drivers employed by the City of Vicksburg is the first step in a long list of changes the Board of Mayor and Aldermen hope will become a citywide green initiative.
The move to curb gasoline usage comes almost two months after the board was forced to amend the budget, approved in September, to allot more funds for gasoline in most city departments. About $245,000 was pulled from the administrative services budget category and divvied among 14 departments. The increase in the budget means one mill of the city’s 35-mill tax rate — about 3 percent — is now going toward gasoline.
In Warren County, where budget amendments are rare, it is all but certain costs in 2008-09 will rocket past the $427,850 spent this year.
Road Department spending on fuel is expected to increase nearly 80 percent, to $412,000 from $260,000 this year, Road Manager Richard Winans said.
Winans said his crews have modified daily routines, taking as many shorter routes from one site to the next as possible. It’s a move meant to maximize precious diesel fuel, but he assured it will not affect the pace of road paving in the county, driven by condition ratings and traffic counts.
“(Paving) is all based on priority anyway,” Winans said. Driver-consciousness remains the county’s only initiative to cut costs, in typically stark contrast to the city’s more initiative-driven approach.
That initiative has a motto: “Changing the way we do business.” It has been Mayor Laurence Leyens’s motto on moving forward without burdening taxpayers and cutting services, which is the story in Canton and other cities across the country, where police have been forced to cut back on patrolling.
While Leyens said the city has no plans to change the level of services, officials have begun making changes, which includes a recent mandate of “no idling” on most city vehicles. The city has also been working to centralize the public works department to cut down on commuting, he added.
“We want to see if we can be smart about our use of energy,” he said.
City purchasing director Tim Smith has been looking at weekly reports of gasoline usage for the 238 cars and trucks the city owns and maintains to see how employees can cut down on trips to the pumps. Area gasoline prices have climbed to as much as $3.91 for regular unleaded and are expected to exceed $4 by the end of the summer. Even though Vicksburg buys bulk and doesn’t pay state or federal taxes of 37.2 cents per gallon on gasoline, wholesale prices are rising above anticipated budgets.
The cost to fuel city vehicles has risen from $62,003 within a fourweek period last summer to $76,486 during the same time period this year, an increase of $14,483, Smith said. Although the increase is blamed on the higher cost of gasoline, employees seem to be avoiding gasoline conservation efforts, Smith indicated. He is currently tracking the miles per gallon each vehicle receives and comparing it to averages from the manufacturer. He said lower gas mileage on vehicles driven by city employees means something needs to be done.
“If it continually stays low, there are some habits that need to be changed,” he said. “They need to stop idling their vehicles or stop having a heavy foot around town.”
For the past month, Smith has looked closely at weekly reports from FuelMan, a state contracted fuel service. The service, which is offered at many local gas stations, as well as places across the state, allows city and county employees to get the discounted gas. It also keeps a record of how many miles per gallon each vehicle is getting.
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“I only have 3,900 miles on it, and it’s a police cruiser. I got it in case they needed another police car,” he said. “I don’t use it a lot. I live a block away, so I mainly use it if I’m going to Jackson for a meeting. But, I don’t drive it a lot, and it doesn’t get good gas mileage.”
Board President Richard George said 2008 Ford and Dodge pickups used by fellow supervisors and the Road Department have averaged 15.8 miles per gallon, slightly ahead of EPA ratings. Supervisors use them to conduct county business, which extends to attending out-of-town conferences.
Supervisors David McDonald and William Banks drove county trucks to this week’s Mississippi Association of Supervisors annual conference in Gulfport, while Bill Lauderdale and Charles Selmon drove personal vehicles. If a supervisor drives a private car, they pay full price for their own gas and file for reimbursement.
“It’s actually cheaper for us to take county trucks because we’d have to be reimbursed the full amount if not,” McDonald said.
North Ward Alderman Michael Mayfield drives a 2003 Crown Victoria, which, last month, pulled in 13 mpg, lower than its factory claim of 18 mpg. While most city employees’ vehicles are below the average, Smith said, South Ward Alderman Sid Beauman had 18.2 mpg on his 2002 Dodge Durango, which is better than the 15 mpg average placed on the sports utility vehicle.
At the request of the board, Smith is looking at any and every way the city can cut corners to conserve energy, Leyens said. Smith plans to report his findings on FuelMan to the board so suggestions may be made to department heads about how to cut down on gasoline usage.
He will also receive sealed bids at Wednesday’s city board meeting on mini trucks, vehicles that get between 40 and 60 miles to the gallon and are touted as being energy-efficient. The city plans to purchase two, two-door trucks for $5,000 each and two four-door trucks at $9,000 each. They will be used mostly in the landscaping and cemetery departments, officials have said. Leyens also has mentioned trading in police cruisers, which are known to guzzle gas, for energy-efficient scooters. In the meantime, however, he said Police Chief Tommy Moffett has agreed to replace half the force’s fleet with smaller cars that get between 30 and 35 miles to the gallon. Smith said he hasn’t yet received a request to purchase any additional vehicles for the police department, which has a fleet comprised of 32 Chevrolet Impalas and a number of Crown Victorias. The department originally budgeted $190,000 for gas this year. In April, they received an increase of $60,000 to bring the gas budget to $250,000. In the county, Sheriff Martin Pace sees “no doubt” that his department will ask for more money to cover gasoline for deputies running 618 square miles of county roads — a haul Pace thinks of as “the linear equivalent of here to St. Louis.”
But, even as needed funds likely will exceed last year’s $135,000, county residents shouldn’t expect cutbacks in service.
“One of the most important components of crime prevention is police presence and minimal response time for calls service,” Pace said. “For this reason we are not cutting back on patrol coverage,” Pace said.
The commitment will come at a price, as costs are escalating for the department’s 48 vehicles, which average 15 miles per gallon.
Pace said $133,802 has been spent so far this year on fuel, oil changes and routine maintenance, up from $99,200 at this point last year. Budget requests have risen by $15,000 in the past three years and figure to rise again.
For the city, cutting corners isn’t limited to gasoline. Smith is working with officials to find ways to, eventually, switch light bulbs across the city to those that burn longer. He also is looking at the payback of converting all city buildings to solar power.
“We want to make some initiatives” to save energy and money, Leyens said.
For the county, going green means simply having to deal with shelling out more money.
“We’re in the same boat as everyone else,” George said. “We still suffer from the same malady with the radical increases in cost.”
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Reader Comments
The following are comments from the readers. In no way do they represent the view of vicksburgpost.com.
pamelasobalvarro wrote on Apr 9, 2009 1:23 AM:
" I was born in vicksburg, but moved to jackson at a very young age. how-ever, we would go visit my
grandmother practically ever other week end.
We always passed by this monument, and I always wondered how they carved into that,
and what they used to do so.I always imagined it
being members of his band riding thru v'burg and stopping to do it shortly after his death.
regardless, he is missed much, but his legacy lives on.the allman bro. ROCK!!!!!!!!!! "
grandmother practically ever other week end.
We always passed by this monument, and I always wondered how they carved into that,
and what they used to do so.I always imagined it
being members of his band riding thru v'burg and stopping to do it shortly after his death.
regardless, he is missed much, but his legacy lives on.the allman bro. ROCK!!!!!!!!!! "
pamelasobalvarro wrote on Apr 9, 2009 1:31 AM:
" I was born in vicksburg, but moved to jackson at a very young age. how-ever, we would go visit my
grandmother practically ever other week end.
We always passed by this monument, and I always wondered how they carved into that,
and what they used to do so.I always imagined it
being members of his band riding thru v'burg and stopping to do it shortly after his death.
regardless, he is missed much, but his legacy lives on...
THE ALLMAN BRO. ROCK !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "
grandmother practically ever other week end.
We always passed by this monument, and I always wondered how they carved into that,
and what they used to do so.I always imagined it
being members of his band riding thru v'burg and stopping to do it shortly after his death.
regardless, he is missed much, but his legacy lives on...
THE ALLMAN BRO. ROCK !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "
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