Talks Continue on Limiting Take-Home Vehicles

Discussions will continue on who in Pittsburgh government is entitled to a take-home vehicle. The Pittsburgh City Council will hold a post-agenda session later this month. Councilman Ricky Burgess has proposed that just seven employees, including the mayor and several department heads, be allowed to take city vehicles home. Today, he says the city's six police zone commanders may need 24-hour access to vehicles as well. Since his bill calls for re-directing the extra vehicles to police anyway, he says adding the commanders to the list might make sense.

That would still be quite a reduction. Fifty-eight employees are now entitled to take home city vehicles. Burgess says he decided to introduce his bill after the city renewed its vehicle maintenance agreement earlier this year. He says he saw that several employees were using the vehicles for personal reasons and not reimbursing the city.

Burgess says he believes his bill would save the city some money, but that's not the point. He says he's trying to instill more fairness and efficiency in the way the government operates. He's also proposing that all vehicles have GPS systems installed so that the city can track where they are at all times. Pittsburgh's Act 47 team has endorsed his proposal.