What happens when you live 2.5 miles from your state office where you work as a Utility Regulatory & Safety Investigator? Why, you get a fancy take-home SUV. Not a terrible abuse of state vehicles, but still needless.
We have no idea why this person cannot drive 2.5 miles (roughly 4 or 5 minutes) before visiting a job site. Basically, we have no idea why anyone who works for the state and lives and works in Frankfort should have a take-home car.
But back to the story. A safety inspector who goes out before or after an accident occurs, not during, drives a gas hog SUV back and forth between home from work every day. He sometimes drives the vehicle home during the day, as the video below shows.
Some would argue (as someone in his office did) that the individual needs to have a take-homer because they could be called out at any hour and occasionally has to work in other areas of the state. But he lives 2.5 miles from the office. And like we said above, never goes out during an accident. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to pay mileage for the might-maybe-possibly-be-called-out once a year scenario than to pay for them to drive a gas hog SUV (we know– we drive a similar Jeep) home every night?
Rumor also has it this guy has been on the receiving end of a number of citizen complaints so he backs his car into his drive way. We’re not sure of that, really, and can’t verify it just yet. (If you’re in Frankfort and want to do so for us, have at it.)
Long story short: we’ve gotta stop throwing away millions of dollars in fuel and maintenance costs for ‘might be’ scenarios. It’s people like this who should have to pay a monthly fee (at minimum) for the privelige of taking a state vehicle home. The city of Louisville does it so surely to jeebus the Commonwealth of Kentucky can do it.
Video after the jump…
11 responses so far ↓
1 hmm? // Jun 28, 2008 at 7:17 pm
I looked up the address and it belongs to a William Aitken who is apparently an employee of the Public Utility Commission-the same group who made the news this week trying to have a party exclusively for the utilities until the media found out about it from a Commission employee. This is clearly an abuse. Living 2.5 miles from the office, this employee can go get the vehicle in the parking lot and then go to whereever necessary. How embarrassing! What about it Mr. Ethics Governor Beshear?
2 and... // Jun 28, 2008 at 7:17 pm
And with the budget crunch…
3 ohyeah // Jun 28, 2008 at 8:40 pm
No big deal. A much bigger local deal to me (certainly some state money is involved) is the confidential informant neighbor of mine who draws every kind of public assistance there is, drives without penalty on suspended license and no insurance, neglects his young kids nd gets a paycheck from the city cops for possessing and trafficking illegal drugs. All çall to police reporting disturbance of the peace, obvious drug use and trafficking activit and child endangerment go unheeded and even criticized by the cops. This is in Frankfort. Let sgtate workers who are, after all, working, drive state cars. Why must. We subsidize drug dealers especially with so very little drug crime reduction and prosecution to justify either the cost to taxpayers or impact on quality of ife and property values for the CIs’ neighbors. Civic priorities start at home.
4 ohyeah // Jun 28, 2008 at 8:44 pm
No big deal. A much bigger local deal to me (certainly some state money is involved) is the confidential informant neighbor of mine who draws every kind of public assistance there is, drives without penalty on suspended license and no insurance, neglects his young kids *nd gets a paycheck from the city cops for possessing and trafficking illegal drugs. All çalls to police reporting disturbances of the peace, obvious drug use and trafficking activity and child endangerment go unheeded and even criticized by the cops. This is in Frankfort. Let state workers who are, after all, working, drive state cars. Why must we subsidize drug dealers especially with so very little drug crime reduction and prosecution to justify either the cost to taxpayers or impact on quality of ife and property values for the CIs’ neighbors. Civic priorities start at homen chief wilhoit.
5 yep // Jun 28, 2008 at 8:48 pm
abuse…don’t know but clearly unnecessary and a waste of tax dollars!
6 Governor's Place Resident // Jun 28, 2008 at 10:54 pm
I don’t think that vehicle is always there. I think he just has it this weekend so that he can use it to give all the utility executives a ride to the big secret party they are having there Monday afternoon. I think Executive Director Stephanie Stumbo and Deputy Director Stephanie Bell gave it to him because of that plus after they moved 35 employees (out of 108) around in the building for no reason other than they wanted to make changes. So, there’s really nothing too it – it’s just business!
7 Another resident // Jun 29, 2008 at 12:17 pm
This person had a Ford Taurus before he got thay big fancy Jeep Patriot. He has had a car for years and it is home two or three days a week during the day and night.
The joke around our neighborhood is we all want a state job like he has. I say put a GPS tracker on his car and really see if he works his required 37.5 hours a week.
8 2nd Floor, 211 Sower // Jun 30, 2008 at 9:34 am
The folks the capitol have sent out here are a joke. I’ll give credit to those who were here for studying the issues and listening to staff questions/concerns. This bunch is a complete joke. From Stephanie S to Stephanie B, the wattage isn’t even close! Rates on these two should be decreased!
9 PSC 1st Floor // Jun 30, 2008 at 9:37 am
We agree! No fan of last governor but at least out of the commissioner appointments there was at least one who had a clue (Goss). As for other staff, they were at least experienced in the areas of their responsibilities. Stumbo and Bell have experience but not in utility regulation. From what I hear, they’d do much better in Nevada.
10 jake // Jun 30, 2008 at 9:39 am
2nd Floor, 1st Floor: If you’re going to leave comments three minutes apart from the same IP address, at least do so as the same person.
11 BILked // Jun 30, 2008 at 11:56 am
FYI … (If you didn’t already know) 159.19 is the beginning of many state government IP addresses.
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