PRESS RELEASE:
The Kansas City Missouri Police Department will revise its take-home-car policy and revoke the take-home status of 60 vehicles in response to an internal audit released at today’s Board of Police Commissioners’ meeting.
The Department’s Internal Audit Unit does an annual review of take-home cars to determine who is using them, how much fuel they used and whether they are being used according to policy. The last audit, completed in August 2008, revealed a 7.3 percent increase in the take-home fleet from 2007 to 2008. It also showed some of those vehicles had fuel usage that was above the Department average. Auditors began to examine the reasons for the increase and found that the self-reporting process for take-home cars is flawed, and not all vehicles being operated as take-home cars were being properly reported.
In response to this audit, Chief James Corwin asked the Internal Audit Unit to physically verify the location of all the department’s 1,000-plus vehicles, including bicycles, trailers and specialty vehicles like Tactical Unit tanks. This audit was released at the Board of Police Commissioners’ July 9 meeting and is available at www.kcpd.org. Chief Corwin wanted that audit completed before the release of the August 2008 Take-Home Vehicle Audit, which is now available on the department’s Web site.
In response to both of the audits, Chief Corwin ordered that 60 of the take-home vehicles have their take-home status revoked. This will save an estimated $178,080 to $179,400 a year. He also ordered the policy regarding take-home vehicles to be revised, a task which is now underway. He further has requested a follow-up audit in February 2010 to ensure the reductions in the take-home fleet and conformity to the Department’s policy.
“I’m grateful to our Internal Audit Unit for seeing that a problem existed with take-home vehicles and doggedly working to find out why,” Chief Corwin said. “This is an excellent example of our commitments to be transparent and to be good stewards of taxpayers’ money. When we have a problem, we let the public know about it, and we fix it.”
The full audit report is available here.
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