Bill to track state workers passes committee

LANSING – Michigan would track the movements of hundreds of state government vehicles under a bill inspired by a state worker caught playing golf on company time.

Senate Bill 8, approved by a legislative committee Thursday, would require the Michigan Department of Technology, Management & Budget to track and record the whereabouts of state vehicles with GPS devices. State Sen. Tonya Schuitmaker, R-Lawton, introduced the bill in January after a state elevator inspector was caught golfing during work hours and using his state vehicle for personal use. Attorney General Bill Schuette charged the employee, Kalamazoo's Werner Noll, with fraud.

The Senate Elections & Government Reform Committee OK'd the bill 4-0 Thursday with an amendment establishing a year-long pilot period beginning Oct. 1. DTMB, which supports the bill, would initially track 120 vehicles across multiple departments and jobs, spokesman Caleb Buhs said. The agency would have to tell lawmakers by fall 2016 if the GPS trackers showed "significant and improved" efficiency and allowed the state to get rid of manual travel logs currently filed by employees.

If the pilot proves fruitful, all state vehicles added to the fleet after Jan. 1, 2017 would have to be tracked. That would cost $500,000 to $1.2 million a year, according to the Senate Fiscal Agency. Buhs said DTMB manages a fleet of 2,600 passenger vehicles.

Schuitmaker said Thursday her bill calls for "using technology to provide more transparency and more accountability." She said private companies using GPS devices have saved money because workers are more conscious of their travel.

State worker unions see some benefit to the program. Ken Moore, president of the Michigan State Employees Association, said in an emailed statement he's "heard from members that they spend a big chunk of time each day on logs and documentation, so if it helps reduce administrative costs and assists in time management, that would be very useful."

Schuitmaker also said tracking state workers made them safer because some employees work in dangerous situations in the field.

But there are better ways to spend the money, said Ray Holman, legislative liaison for the United Auto Workers Local 6000, Michigan's largest state-worker union.

"This is something we can't afford to do right now," Holman said. "The resources should be spent on hiring more people that have a direct contact with the public."

Schuette said in a January statement Noll wasted more than $8,000 in public money by doing personal business on 84 days between 2012 and 2014. But Liza Estlund Olson, staff director for the Service Employees International Union Local 517M, said almost all employees act appropriately and called the bill an overreaction to the Noll case.

"They're spending all this money on things that have no value to the citizens of Michigan — it's not filling a pothole; it's not saving a person's life," she said. "At what point do you say, how much is too much to try to catch the one person who did something wrong?"

But Noll's case wasn't the first time such issues have been raised.

In 2009, for example, the Michigan Auditor General said the state potentially wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars a year through excessive travel reimbursements, vehicle leases and car washes — and found other issues in vehicle management in an audit last fall. The government was criticized in 2003 when the State Journal revealed state policy allows workers to use government cars for off-duty leisure if they're on an overnight trip — meaning the government car spotted at a Lansing strip club violated no rules.

The policy says employees must "ensure that there is no misuse, or perceived misuse, of public assets."

Schuitmaker's bill now goes to the full Senate for consideration.