amcintosh@sacbee.com Published Monday, Oct. 26, 2009

Two of the state’s largest departments spent more than $5.5 million on new cars and trucks this year only to leave them idle and gathering dust for months.  One department still has pickup and larger trucks parked in its yard that it bought during 2006, 2007 and 2008, a Bee investigation found. The vehicles are awaiting final assembly and are undeployed.

The departments bought more vehicles as lawmakers slashed state spending, cut state worker pay and eliminated key public services after tax revenue plunged and they needed to balance the budget.  

The Department of General Services spent $1.2 million on 50 new hybrid Toyota Prius sedans in February, with state agencies committed to buying only 13 of them, state purchasing records show.

The Bee found and photographed the cars on the top floor of the state garage near the Capitol, where they were parked for months. All were moved after The Bee asked about them.

General Services spokesman Eric Lamoureux said the cars are being converted and used in a California Energy Commission pilot project for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. That will cost taxpayers an additional $612,500.

The Department of Transportation has spent $4.3 million since February to buy new trucks and dump-truck bodies, including a $1.7 million flurry of orders June 30 – the last day of the state’s fiscal year.

A Bee reporter who visited three different Caltrans depot yards beneath and near Highway 50 saw more than 100 undeployed heavy-, medium- and light-duty trucks sitting behind fences. State records show dozens of them have been parked there for months – with delivery dates ranging from January to July – awaiting outfitting with such components as toolboxes and snowblowers before they can be put into action.

A handful have been parked there, unused, for years.

The Bee obtained vehicle purchase records from the two departments under the California Public Records Act.

General Services and Caltrans officials defended the purchases, saying they secured value for the public’s money. The vehicles will eventually be put into service, they added.

Caltrans spokesman Matt Rocco offered this explanation for the trucks that have sat unused for the longest period of time:

“Changing priorities based on such factors as environmental requirements, fluctuating workloads and the need for specialty vehicles can change the production and distribution of individual vehicles,” he said in a written statement.

It’s not the first time the state has bought vehicles and then parked them for months.

In 2007, the state auditor said the California Highway Patrol wasted $881,565 in state funds and lost more than $90,000 in interest after it bought 51 vans in 2005 that went virtually unused for years.

Lamoureux said it wasn’t General Services’ fault that Priuses bought earlier this year were unused for months. Circumstances surrounding the purchase were unusual, he said.

General Services, which manages a car fleet for departments and is also the state’s purchasing arm, was given a Jan. 30 factory cutoff date to buy 2009 Toyota hybrid Prius sedans, he said.

He said DGS surveyed departments to determine needs, but didn’t ask them to commit to buying. Departments told DGS officials they’d need 37 cars in 2009, the survey found. DGS estimated it would need 13 cars for its fleet.

Visalia Toyota delivered 50 cars in early February. After they arrived, there were few buyers. The Department of Fish and Game acquired two in May. The Department of Motor Vehicles bought one in June.

Lamoureux said DGS has since made some of the cars available for daily rentals by state officials.

The cars have been used 54 times since then, with most of the trips taken since The Bee filed its records request on Sept. 30, DGS rental records show.

“We kept them all up there (on the garage roof) so they’d be ready for the conversion project. In hindsight, was that the best approach? Perhaps not, but it’s the one we took,” Lamoureux said.

This summer, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered all state departments to reduce their vehicle fleets by 15 percent. He hopes that will save $24.1 million a year.

Schwarzenegger issued an executive order ordering the cuts after an internal state audit found thousands of state workers were driving state cars home from work without proper need or justification.

The state later sold 438 surplus vehicles at the Great California Garage Sale, raising more than $1 million.

Lamoureux said departments that wanted to buy Priuses may no longer want them, thanks to the executive order.

DGS will blend the unused Priuses into its own fleet, and sell older, gasoline-only powered cars.

At Caltrans, equipment chief Walter Menda said that while drivers who cruise past his depot yards under Highway 50 may think dozens of trucks have sat there for months, Caltrans officials are “constantly rotating similar-looking vehicles in and out.”

But Menda said many of the stripped-down trucks delivered in the last nine months have sat unused because Caltrans actually designs, engineers and assembles its own light-, medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, including those with snowplows and snowblowers attached. The plant is certified as a vehicle manufacturer by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Using equipment identification numbers from Caltrans records, The Bee found three Ford F-450 diesel pickup trucks delivered in April 2008 were still sitting unused in the Caltrans yard this week.

All three were purchased with five-year, 100,000-mile extended warranties. That cost $2,020 each.

Despite the unused 2008 trucks still sitting in the yard, Caltrans ordered three more Ford F-450 trucks in May, also with the extended warranties. They’re all still sitting in the yard, too.

Two large Caltrans trucks carried Department of Motor Vehicles registrations showing they were bought by the state on Sept. 5 and Nov. 15, 2006.

Four more big trucks displayed records showing they were bought in April 2008.

Menda said it was “somewhat coincidental” that his division made a flurry of orders for trucks and dump-truck bodies on the last day of the state’s fiscal year. He denied spending funds to avoid losing them.

“It could look like that, but it was somewhat coincidental that the purchase orders were all signed and dated June 30,” he said. “It was well planned out, in advance. It was just part of the procurement process. These are heavy-duty trucks. It’s not like you can just walk onto a car lot and buy them.”

Menda acknowledged trucks do sit unused for months due to factors beyond the department’s control, like a shortage of parts needed to assemble the full vehicles. Shipments are also delayed and some trucks have to be sent back if there are recalls.

Three furlough days a month have slowed assembly of the trucks and their components, he added.

Steve Bannion, a fleet truck salesman with Bonander Truck in Turlock, said he made a flurry of sales to Caltrans on June 30 because General Motors surprised clients this summer and announced it would no longer make certain gasoline-powered medium-duty trucks.

Caltrans told him they wanted to lock up a supply of cabs so they wouldn’t have to retrofit diesel trucks with particulate-capturing devices to comply with state emissions regulations, he said.

Call The Bee’s Andrew McIntosh, (916) 321-1215.