City of Detroit is paying $65,000 for a 2004 Dodge Intrepid.

[BEEAH]

http://autos.yahoo.com/news/city-of-...-even-own.html

But for a police department in a city with a struggling economy, running up a $65,000 bill for what amounts to renting an nine-year-old car seems like a bit of an oversight. That's just what the Detroit Police Department has been doing since 2003 when it leased a 2004 model Dodge Intrepid at the lofty price of $608 per month. The problem? They've been paying that price ever since.

[Motor City Sam]

And this is just one example in a City that leases thousands of cars. Makes you wonder, not for the first time, just how far it would go towards balancing the budget if we just got rid of all the theft and waste in the City's spending.

Also shows why it's hard to sell a City employee on further wage cuts when money is wasted by paying 600 bucks a month to lease a Dodge Intrepid [[600 bucks a month? In 2003 dollars) and pay an extra 10 grand in mileage.

[Brich]

It's not just one car, according to the article:


"But that's just one vehicle, and the city is currently paying for over a hundred leased cars currently in use, and all of them are operating on expired leases. The seemingly careless spending could total several millions of dollars in the end, and the city apparently has no plans to reverse the practice."

I wonder which car dealership[[s) are benefiting from this municipal largesse, and what relations the owners have with government officials.

[Buy American]

^^^^Been preaching that since I joined this forum. Start getting rid of the crooks, the family members, the fat at the top; trim or eliminate departments that don't help the City, and maybe something good will happen.

When employees of the City of Detroit are continually asked to make sacrifices, to take pay cuts when they haven't received raises in 8-10 years, to pay more for their health care, and then read or hear about the absolute waste that goes on within the CAY building and beyond, it angers them and the retirees as well. New Police Officers are starting out at $27,000.00/yr., that's poverty level!!! Then take away 10% more, more for health care, union dues, and other expenses that the City doesn't pay for and what do they have left? The unions are certainly not to blame for this.

How can Bing or Puke or any of the clowncil expect the workers to keep giving back while they don't? How can they expect the workers to keep giving back while an Intrepid has already cost the City over $65,000 for a lease...and that's just one car, one department [[Police)? Its' happening in EVERY department.

Bing has been in office long enough to ferret out these problems...Godbee has been Chief long enough to know what is going on in his department, no more excuses.

[jolla]

I wonder which car dealership[[s) are benefiting from this municipal largesse, and what relations the owners have with government officials.

^^^^^^this

[Wesley Mouch]

"But that's just one vehicle, and the city is currently paying for over a hundred leased cars currently in use, and all of them are operating on expired leases. The seemingly careless spending could total several millions of dollars in the end, and the city apparently has no plans to reverse the practice."

Its not 'careless' at all. Its very well thought through. I'm sure if you look deeply into this, you'll find that this was very carefully done to get around all sorts of rules, while at the same time...[[see below)

I wonder which car dealership[[s) are benefiting from this municipal largesse, and what relations the owners have with government officials.

Whichever one kicks back the most money or perks.

It is possible, but unlikely, that its a friend. Unless that friend also funnels money back.

'Follow the Money'

[EastsideAl]

This is just the sort of thing that I was hoping that Dave Bing would address. I'm not generally real big on the "run government like a business" crowd. But given his business background, I had hoped that Bing and his people would at least try to get the city's finances straightened out, and try to ferret out and put a stop to some of the worst and most obvious wasteful practices and giveways, like this car leasing thing.

But, alas, Bing is no Mike Bloomberg. Hell, he barely seems to be awake most of the time. What a failure and a complete disappointment. And the gravy train rolls on while we who pay for it can't even get our calls answered.

[corktownyuppie]

This is just the sort of thing that I was hoping that Dave Bing would address. I'm not generally real big on the "run government like a business" crowd. But given his business background, I had hoped that Bing and his people would at least try to get the city's finances straightened out, and try to ferret out and put a stop to some of the worst and most obvious wasteful practices and giveways, like this car leasing thing.

But, alas, Bing is no Mike Bloomberg. Hell, he barely seems to be awake most of the time. What a failure and a complete disappointment. And the gravy train rolls on while we who pay for it can't even get our calls answered.

It's not clear to me that this is Bing's fault, other than in the "Buck Stops Here" kind of way.

I think Bing fully intended on correcting these issues. But the problems are twofold:

[[1) The monumental, herculean task of FINDING all the leaks in the system was likely far more than anyone ever expected.

[[2) Every person who was invested in keeping the status quo [[which likely means every person who works for the city) is fighting every single change at every single moment.

This is an example of where a purely democratic process simply no longer works. What I'd like to see is for the mayor and the city council [[along with the financial advisory board) to immediately announce to all departments and employees that effectively immediately, all jobs are terminated and every single department is disbanded from this point going forward.

Then they can make a subsequent announcement where they announce that they are categorizing all city functions into 3 different piles:

Need to do
Want to do
Don't Want or Need to do.

Then they can rebuild all the departments from scratch, with a keen eye for efficiency and productivity along with antenna up for fraud and corruption.

[wolverine]

^ yeah transparency is a big problem. The fact that it took a Freedom of Information request to find about this is nothing short of astonishing.

[trstar]

^^^^^^this

Fully agree. Where's the FULL story to this?