The Commissioner's Wheels

Earlier today I suggested that somebody ought to get Paul Cleaver on the phone to clear up the suggestions made in C-J's story that it required a big engine to handle the demands of a little GPS unit.

So I did.

I knew Paul, a little bit, from a couple of principals dinners, back in the day, when his first wife (Becke, then with Fayette and later Clark Co & UK, now deceased) and I were colleagues.

Paul is the top dog at Freedom Dodge...the one whose face graces numerous TV commercials about what a great deal you can get at his place. And from his perspective, KDE got one.

After I sent Cleaver the C-J story, he got back to me and complained, "They make it sound like we were ripping somebody off."

He says the story focuses on the price for a "base 300," and that C-J got the numbers right. But, Cleaver adds, Draud got a "300 C."

That's a whole different car. I'm driving one right now. This is a top of the line automobile with a luxury package, leather seats and different sized wheels. This has a hemi...V-8... and a completely different power train. The one I'm driving lists at $41,000. It sounds to me like the state got a heck of a deal at $30,000. That's $11,000 cheaper than what I'm driving.

But whatever the merits of a Chrysler 300, it is relatively similar in price, size and power to the car Draud had been driving - a Crown Victoria. The Crown Vic can be upgraded too.

"There's not a heck of a lot of difference," Finance Cabinet official Glenn Mitchell told KSN&C. He said, "over the last 4 or 5 years we've cut back [on the Crown Victoria] except for police cruisers. The police like the big trunk." But more recently state government has "converted to the Chevy Impala." For example, he said, "Mr Hayes, the governor's cabinet secretary drives an Impala." Draud's request for the upgrade to accomodate the GPS and bluetooth capability were "what he felt he needed for that amount of travel."

Mitchell said the Commissioner's contract requires the state to provide a car and that the Finance Cabinet "was not in a position to dictate" what kind of cars state officials drive. The cars are bid and placed on a state price contract. Because of the heavy travel requirements placed on the Commissioner of Education, his car is permanently assigned - a status reserved for cabinet secretaries and other top officials, or when "justified for public safety reasons" as is the case with Kentucky's Adjutant General, who is on-call to the National Guard 24/7.

So the story is...The commissioner's contract required the state to provide the Commissioner with a car. The lease on the Crown Victoria assigned to Draud had expired. He picked the new car he wanted from the state list. He asked for upgrades related to safety, productivity and efficiency, one assumes so that he could do some work while driving (I noticed his interview with Toni at C-J was while he was driving).

My take is that the state procurement folks might want to consider that this kind of thing could come up again. With a little research, perhaps they could figure out a way to add "third-party" equipment like GPS and Bluetooth to any car. It's not as nice as the dealer upgrade, perhaps. But it would accomplish the same goals more economically. In any budget, tight or otherwise, that's a good thing.

Of course, the state might rethink fleet vehicles altogether. How would this baby do against an overloaded coal truck in Leslie County?