While some counties may provide vehicles for their county commissioners, council and/or county administrators, Kosciusko County does not.

In fact, when it comes to vehicles, Kosciusko County is known to be rather conservative.

"I know we are a lot more conservative with vehicles than some counties," said Ron Robinson, county administrator. The county commissioners and council do a very good job of trying to keep things under control, he said.

As for other departments, the county highway department has 40 dump trucks, 15 pickups, six specialty vehicles, five loaders, two graders, two backhoes and a semi.

Usually, highway department employees take their vehicles home for snowplowing from Dec. 1 to the end of February. However, that may change if the weather is severe earlier or if the winter lasts past February. The snowplows are placed strategically around the county to provide better snowplowing service for the county, said Robinson.

"Those three months is when everyone takes their vehicle home so they can plow from their residence," he said.

Years ago, he said, the county highway department employees had to drive from their residences to the highway department, pick up their vehicles and then drive them back to their residences to start snowplowing. By having their vehicles at their residences, the drivers can provide quicker service.

While the county surveyor has one pickup, the health department has two. They are allowed to be taken home by the employees who use them.

Along with their 39-40 cars, the Kosciusko County Sheriff's Department has a dive van and an animal control pickup. All of the KCSD cars are taken home.

Vehicles are replaced on a rotating basis. If a vehicle is not traded in, it may become a backup vehicle. The highway and sheriff's departments try to keep several spares in case of accident or breakdown of the regular cars.

When a vehicle is considered for replacement, Robinson said, it will have more than 100,000 miles on it. But that's not the same kind of miles an average vehicle has on it, as county vehicles are used in rough conditions or at higher speeds.

"Those cars can really take a beating," he said. By the time the legal process is complete for the county to purchase a new vehicle, the old one has another 25,000 miles on it. If the county keeps a vehicle for more than 130,000 miles, Robinson said, it starts to "nickel and dime" the county. Refurbishing vehicles has proved not to be very successful, he said.

Besides the cost of purchasing vehicles for the county, the county also must purchase insurance. For automobile liability, the county pays $40,301 per year and $22,891 for automobile physical damage. However, the latter includes more than just vehicles, such as trailers and lawnmowers.

"That's not just for cars. There's no way to break that completely down," said Robinson. He said the county will be looking for new insurance bids in early 2003. The county's cost for their total insurance package for 2002 was $228,000, and he said that cost is going up. Bids for new insurance will go out to all local insurance representatives, and after quotes are returned, the county will review those and make a decision.

"The lowest (quote) is not always the best," Robinson said. Local agents have been extremely helpful, he said, in keeping the county's insurance costs down because the money the county spends on insurance is the local agent's tax money, too.

The cost of gasoline for county vehicles does not fluctuate much, he said. The county purchases approximately 8,000 gallons at a time with the county highway department also purchasing another 8,000-10,000 gallons.

"On the whole," said Robinson, "if you buy fuel like we do, there's not a whole lot of variation." [[In-content Ad]]