Letter to the editor: Time to end taxpayer-paid vehicles for county employees

Let’s continue to beat the dead horse and reclassify it as living impaired.

Why does any Westmoreland County employee have a taxpayer-paid vehicle to commute to work?

According to Rich Cholodofsky’s latest expose (“Westmoreland DA vehicle usage declines as a result of crash,” April 5, TribLIVE), the county coroner uses a county vehicle to commute from Scottdale to Greensburg daily.

The round trip is 33 miles x 5 days per week x 48 weeks (assuming three weeks’ vacation and a week of sick time). Mileage for the commute is 7,920 miles at 19 mpg (2022 Ford Explorer) = 417 gallons of fuel at $4 per gallon or $1,668.

The county sheriff commutes from New Alexandria 22 miles daily (round trip), or $1,111 annually.

The numbers do not include vehicle depreciation, fluid changes, tires, maintenance, inspections, insurance, etc.

Why not:

Domicile vehicles at the courthouse. Employees drive their personally owned vehicles (POA) to work, sign for county vehicles for county business, then return the vehicles when the business is concluded.

If after hours the employee drives their POA, he or she records the mileage then submits a mileage log for fuel reimbursement at 65 cents per mile.

Sell administrative vehicles, and require county employees to use their POA and reimburse for them for mileage.

David Scandrol

Lower Burrell