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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2021 - 2022
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | February 3, 2021 04:53 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative Brad Roae |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | Abolish Practice of Providing State Paid or Leased Vehicles to Legislators (Act) |
| I will soon introduce legislation to change the law to ban legislators from obtaining state cars. Previously, I sent out a memo to change the House Rules to ban legislators from obtaining state cars and that has already been introduced. Currently, there are only about 20 Representatives that have state leased cars. The program allows leases up to $650 per month. Participants can use the vehicles for official business, campaign purposes and personal purposes. Participants pay a proportional percentage of the cost for the non-business use of the vehicle. For example, if 85% of the usage was official business the legislator could have a brand-new full size 4X4 SUV for only $98 a month plus a proportional share of the other expenses such as gasoline. Driving records are not closely monitored so it is a huge liability issue for the state. In the past, there was a situation where a Member actually crashed their state car 3 times; the last crash occurring without a valid driver’s license and that Member also fled the scene of the accident. It is expensive to maintain a program that only about 10% of the Members use. The other 90% of Members use their own cars and receive mileage reimbursement. Most PennDOT employees do not own a triaxle dump truck and State Police officers do not personally own police cars so it makes sense for state owned vehicles to be made available for them to use for work. Legislators need to transport a briefcase and that can be done in a typical passenger vehicle. There is no valid reason to have taxpayers buy cars for legislators. I would greatly appreciate your co-sponsorship of this legislation. |
Introduced as HB746