Sometimes you just have to shake your head

How could something like this get so out of hand?

In a Jan. 22 memo, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa ordered all city departments to terminate the gasoline credit cards — good for up to $1,500 per month — routinely issued to elected officials, their staff and general managers.

But a memo six days later from Tony Royster, the head of the General Services Department, (with a cc: to the mayor’s office) suggested that there might be some wiggle room for employees who aren’t ready to hand over the plastic.

Villaraigosa’s order was spurred by City Controller Laura N. Chick’s scathing auditson the city’s fleet, its gasoline-use policies and the large increase in the number of take-home cars issued to Los Angeles police officers.

Chick had determined there was no way of telling whether the gas cards were being used only for city cars and city business — not to mention only in emergencies as they were intended. With 136 city-owned pumps scattered around Los Angeles with free gas for city officials, Chick reasoned that the cards weren’t needed. And with the city facing a budget crunch, it seemed that the mayor agreed.

Just makes you shake your head … doesn’t it?

This entry was posted on Friday, February 6th, 2009 at 9:11 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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