Mainstream article on Mitch Daniels and Purdue - not a hatchet job (!)

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  • indykid

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    If all university presidents had his gonads. When he was governor, he forced the bureaucracy to cut their budgets by 10%. After all the crying and complaining, the different bureaus did it. His response was that to become fiscally responsible, they were to cut another 10%. Didn't take long for Indiana to have a balanced budget and have most of the rest of the country recognizing our fiscal responsibility.

    When my daughter was going to college, it seemed the normal that the second year prices went up 5%, then the next year another 5%, and the final year another 5%. Glad to see Daniels holding firm and showing that a university doesn't need the constant increasing of tuition which is the primary reason a college diploma has become almost unaffordable.
     

    rob63

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    My favorite story about Mitch Daniels, that I have read, was about him trying to cut the number of cars that were owned by the state for employee use. He first asked all of the agencies to give him a realistic number about how many cars were really needed, and, naturally, was told that they were all needed. He had an aide go to the state garage and place a penny on top of one of the tires of each car. He then waited a week and had the aide go back and check on how many of the cars still had the penny sitting on top of the tire. He then knew how many to get rid of, which was most of them.
     

    Tactically Fat

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    My favorite story about Mitch Daniels, that I have read, was about him trying to cut the number of cars that were owned by the state for employee use. He first asked all of the agencies to give him a realistic number about how many cars were really needed, and, naturally, was told that they were all needed. He had an aide go to the state garage and place a penny on top of one of the tires of each car. He then waited a week and had the aide go back and check on how many of the cars still had the penny sitting on top of the tire. He then knew how many to get rid of, which was most of them.

    There's good and bad to this.

    Now we're much more inefficient on our quarterly field work schedules. Before Mitch, to justify a vehicle, it had to be used X-number of days per month or X-number of miles. I think it was 10 days and maybe 800 miles. It was then upped to 12 days of use and 1000 miles per month per vehicle or your department loses the vehicle.

    So now our work is chopped up and doled out so much that we're spending a lot more on gasoline. (but still less than the purchase price of a vehicle). So instead of doing audits at 4-5 sites per work trip, we'll now generally only do 1 or 2.

    They're also keeping vehicles until 150k+ miles...which is a good thing. They used to start the surplus process at 75k miles.

    We used to have a real hard time achieving all the vehicular milestones in the winter months, but then the Federal rules changed and now we do certain stuff all year 'round vs. just May - Oct.

    I know if my office had any fewer vehicles - it'd be a definite strain.
     

    rob63

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    There's good and bad to this.

    Now we're much more inefficient on our quarterly field work schedules. Before Mitch, to justify a vehicle, it had to be used X-number of days per month or X-number of miles. I think it was 10 days and maybe 800 miles. It was then upped to 12 days of use and 1000 miles per month per vehicle or your department loses the vehicle.

    So now our work is chopped up and doled out so much that we're spending a lot more on gasoline. (but still less than the purchase price of a vehicle). So instead of doing audits at 4-5 sites per work trip, we'll now generally only do 1 or 2.

    They're also keeping vehicles until 150k+ miles...which is a good thing. They used to start the surplus process at 75k miles.

    We used to have a real hard time achieving all the vehicular milestones in the winter months, but then the Federal rules changed and now we do certain stuff all year 'round vs. just May - Oct.

    I know if my office had any fewer vehicles - it'd be a definite strain.

    I used to work for the federal government so I know how it goes. When faced with the need to economize, the government does not try to find ways to become more efficient, such as coordinating the use of vehicles across agencies. They do things like your example instead, become less efficient in order to justify keeping the empire.
     

    Tactically Fat

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    I used to work for the federal government so I know how it goes. When faced with the need to economize, the government does not try to find ways to become more efficient, such as coordinating the use of vehicles across agencies. They do things like your example instead, become less efficient in order to justify keeping the empire.

    to be fair, if my office were at a centralized location, we could indeed share "pool" vehicles with the rest of our agency. But we're not a part of the central office and don't have access to the general motor pool.
     

    two70

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    I used to work for the federal government so I know how it goes. When faced with the need to economize, the government does not try to find ways to become more efficient, such as coordinating the use of vehicles across agencies. They do things like your example instead, become less efficient in order to justify keeping the empire.

    There's a bit more to it than that. While there was(and generally always is) room for improved efficiency, Governor Daniels failed to take into consider a couple of key points about vehicle usage in the beginning. First, a significant amount of the vehicles in the fleet that failed to meet monthly mileage quotas some months easily met the yearly quotas which didn't really matter. These vehicles were primarily used by field staff who put a years worth of mileage on vehicles during the warm months but which are hardly used during the winter months due to being specialized vehicles(mobile labs) or less desirable to a lot of drivers(Suburbans, full size crew cabs, etc.). During the summer months available vehicles were often difficult to find and not always available on short notice.

    I generally liked Governor Daniels but he was often more dedicated to the illusion of efficiency than the practice there of. As an example, during his terms all new vehicle purchases were required to be E-85 or flex fuel vehicles(despite the increased cost) and drivers were required to use E-85 even if meant driving out of the way to do so (despite the poor mileage and higher long term cost of doing so). All vehicles also had to be serviced at the State Motor Pool if at all possible, despite the higher expense, much slower turnaround and often poorer quality of work.
     

    ATOMonkey

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    Unless the vehicle is specialized, why can't people drive their own cars and deduct the mileage on their taxes, like everyone else?
     

    two70

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    Unless the vehicle is specialized, why can't people drive their own cars and deduct the mileage on their taxes, like everyone else?

    It is more expensive to pay mileage and the State tries to avoid it like the plague. Plus their is the potential for sticky liability issues.
     

    Tactically Fat

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    There's a bit more to it than that. While there was(and generally always is) room for improved efficiency, Governor Daniels failed to take into consider a couple of key points about vehicle usage in the beginning. First, a significant amount of the vehicles in the fleet that failed to meet monthly mileage quotas some months easily met the yearly quotas which didn't really matter. These vehicles were primarily used by field staff who put a years worth of mileage on vehicles during the warm months but which are hardly used during the winter months due to being specialized vehicles(mobile labs) or less desirable to a lot of drivers(Suburbans, full size crew cabs, etc.). During the summer months available vehicles were often difficult to find and not always available on short notice.

    I generally liked Governor Daniels but he was often more dedicated to the illusion of efficiency than the practice there of. As an example, during his terms all new vehicle purchases were required to be E-85 or flex fuel vehicles(despite the increased cost) and drivers were required to use E-85 even if meant driving out of the way to do so (despite the poor mileage and higher long term cost of doing so). All vehicles also had to be serviced at the State Motor Pool if at all possible, despite the higher expense, much slower turnaround and often poorer quality of work.

    yeah - the yearly mileage quota would be a lot better than monthly metrics.

    My section - we have 2 Dodge Caravans, 2 Ford Explorers, and 1 Dodge Durango. We could get by with 5 minivans or even smaller 2wd SUV's for the overwhelming majority of our work. But there are times when we need the passenger capacity (such as conferences in Chicago at the Fed facility) or for a bunch of equipment. When certainly don't need the capacity of the vehicles we have all the time - but when we do, we really do. So we have it when we need it.

    Unless the vehicle is specialized, why can't people drive their own cars and deduct the mileage on their taxes, like everyone else?

    Liability is a huge one. If I'm in an accident on work business, I want the Self Insured State to be responsible. Not me/mine. Especially with as many work miles as we drive. And especially with how often I have $50k + in equipment in the vehicle.

    Again - for my agency and my particular work location - having access to the standard motor pool would be great. I could take an efficient sedan out to do the vast majority of my work. But we don't have those out here.
     

    Tactically Fat

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    If my kids go to 4 year college (and that's a big IF), it will definitely be Purdue.

    I'd like to humbly submit the University of Southern Indiana as an option. 1/3rd the price, accredited by the same organization/s, and pretty incredible living accommodations.
     

    two70

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    yeah - the yearly mileage quota would be a lot better than monthly metrics.

    My section - we have 2 Dodge Caravans, 2 Ford Explorers, and 1 Dodge Durango. We could get by with 5 minivans or even smaller 2wd SUV's for the overwhelming majority of our work. But there are times when we need the passenger capacity (such as conferences in Chicago at the Fed facility) or for a bunch of equipment. When certainly don't need the capacity of the vehicles we have all the time - but when we do, we really do. So we have it when we need it.



    Liability is a huge one. If I'm in an accident on work business, I want the Self Insured State to be responsible. Not me/mine. Especially with as many work miles as we drive. And especially with how often I have $50k + in equipment in the vehicle.

    Again - for my agency and my particular work location - having access to the standard motor pool would be great. I could take an efficient sedan out to do the vast majority of my work. But we don't have those out here.

    Yes, we had a lot of trouble initially trying to get the Administration to understand that the handful of specialized vehicles that were getting 15K miles in 5 months were actually more critical than the multiple standard sedans that barely averaged the 1000 miles a month but did so every month. We initially had to "donate" a couple of vehicles to the general pool every winter but much to almost no one's surprise the mobile labs and long bed, crew cab 4X4s didn't get driven much by the office folks.

    We only have two vehicles for my section, one of which is not currently operational. We do at least have access to a small satellite office motor pool of additional vehicles but that doesn't always help much during the summer.
     

    JettaKnight

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