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Santa Fe New Mexican.com - When Jon Barela walked into his new job as the secretary-designate of the Economic Development Department earlier this month, he was offered the keys to a state-owned Chevy Impala. He turned down the offer, even though the car was a much nicer ride than the 1995 GMC pickup he's getting around in now. "I didn't think it was the right thing to do under these circumstances," Barela said. The Impala is now parked in a state-owned lot with other vehicles bought with tax revenues. As the state tries to whittle its budget deficit, Gov. Susana Martinez is asking each department to investigate how many cars it has and what it uses them for. And to further curb state spending, she already has announced a moratorium on the purchase of new state vehicles, with the exception of law-enforcement vehicles. "The governor has made it very clear she wants every Cabinet secretary to review policy on government vehicles and provide justification for why any employee would need a take-home car," spokesman Scott Darnell said. The state's fleet includes thousands of vehicles and is managed by a variety of agencies. The General Services Department, for example, has said there are about 2,200 vehicles in its fleet, which is about a third of the state's total cars. A 2009 report on commuter vehicles, commonly referred to as take-home cars, said 236 commuter vehicles were leased through the General Services Department. It did not list who was driving them. Other agencies manage their own fleets of vehicles and appear to have varying rules about the vehicles' use. At the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, which has 423 vehicles, no one uses them to commute, for example, but vehicles are allowed to be driven home if an employee has work in the field the next day and the drive to the work site is closer than driving back to Santa Fe to pick up a car. The Department of Transportation, meanwhile, has 6,500 heavy- and light-duty vehicles statewide. Of those, 295 are passenger cars. It wasn't immediately clear how many are used by employees to commute to and from work. Regular access to a state car is just one perk that could go away under the new administration. A taxpayer-funded cell phone is another. Some 4,643 state employees had cell phones as of Dec. 31, and they cost the state $2.6 million a year, a spokeswoman for the General Services Department said Wednesday. Of those, 1,401 are smartphones, which are more expensive than regular cell phones. Martinez is looking at the cost of those phones, Darnell said.
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Martinez targets department fleets, other perks
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