With the start of the new fiscal year Saturday, the Columbia Police Department is adjusting the amount of money it spends annually on vehicles and fuel.
The fuel allotment for CPD rose by $50,561, or 14 percent, between the 2011 and 2012 budgets, according to city records.
“We were told to budget more for gas this year because prices were going up,” Columbia Budget Officer Laura Peveler said. “For fuel-heavy, fuel-dependent operations, if you’re off in your numbers, you’d much rather be too high.”
Peveler said the 2012 budget figures were based on an average price of $4 per gallon. The average price of regular gasoline in Columbia was about $3.15 as of Thursday morning, according to AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report.
“When a car is in need of gas, the officer fills it up for the next officer that comes on shift,” CPD spokeswoman Latisha Stroer said. “You put in a gas code special to us and the vehicle number, which tracks how much gas is being used and the miles driven.”
CPD uses 33 vehicles for patrol, accumulating 800,000 miles of patrol activity per year, according to City Manager Mike Matthes’ proposed budget. Stroer said the department uses 107 vehicles total.
Earlier this year, CPD purchased 16 new Chevrolet Tahoe SUV’s under last year’s budget to assemble a new police fleet, Peveler said. Stroer said the department had to choose between the Dodge Charger and the Chevrolet Tahoe.
“We’re going to a new fleet of Chevy Tahoes because they’re no longer offering the police package Crown Victorias,” Stroer said. “The chief made the decision on the Tahoes because they’re more spacious.”
Peveler said the department had a limited number of options for replacing the old police cars.
“We were told (Chevy Tahoes) have about the same gas mileage as the Crown Victorias,” Peveler said. “The thing with police cars is that they’re left idling most of the time, so they don’t get great gas mileage anyway.”
Peveler said the purchase of the new Tahoes was included in the 2011 budget. The 2012 budget does not allow for any vehicle purchases or replacements, which typically carry a net cost of $23,000 each. According to Matthes’ proposed budget, this constraint requires 16 patrol cars to be used for an additional year. The vehicle maintenance budget allotment rose by $45,979, or 27 percent, compared to 2011 figures.
Columbia Budget Officer Laura Peveler said the biggest change in the police budget from the last fiscal year comes in the personnel department, which includes salaries and benefits.
“It’s so big because the funding needed for the pension plans went up dramatically,” she said. “That increase drove a lot of what did and didn’t get approved in the budget.”
Peveler said the police department is in charge of coming up with its own annual budget, with a few guidelines from the city.
“They look at the vehicles they have and how much fuel they use to come up with their own numbers,” she said. “We give them a few guidelines, such as budgeting a certain amount per gallon for fuel.”
Overall, the police budget for the 2012 fiscal year shows a $1,051,483 decrease, a drop of 5.3 percent.
“Citywide, there’s a three-year plan so that by 2014, we will not utilize any funds from savings accounts in the general fund to balance the budget,” Peveler said. “We’ll see two more years of overall budget cuts before we accomplish that.”
