KEYSER, W.Va. — A group of lawmakers in West Virginia is taking a look at the fleet of state-owned vehicles.
The Joint Committee on Government Organization is conducting an audit to find out how vehicles the state actually has, Del. Gary Howell (R-Mineral) said.
“During the recent budget debates we were looking for savings and we asked if we could do a moratorium on new vehicles and that led to the question what does the state have?”
According to Howell, there are about 7,700 vehicles in the state fleet while there are approximately 10,000 active green state license plates. Howell says some vehicles that are not owned by the state actually have green state plates.
The Board of Insurance and Risk Management claims more than 12,000 vehicles are being covered by insurance by the state.
“We are already finding some things that are distressing,” Howell said.
There was a license plate that was in a filing cabinet for eight years and the state paid for insurance on for those eight years, according to Howell.
Once the audit of what vehicles are actually owned by the state is completed there could be a savings of more than $500,000 just in insurance.
The committee plans to make several recommendations focused on vehicle tracking, Howell said, adding he hopes they can have the audit done by the end of the year in order to be able to introduce legislation focused on state vehicles in next year’s regular session.