When Thornton Mayor Noel Busck took office in 1999, he was driving a 5-year-old Cadillac.
He drove it to meetings around Denver, council study sessions and city events. His new job required him to drive so much, in fact, that about 95 percent of the miles he put on the vehicle were for city business.
“This might be a part-time position, but I work at it full-time,” said Busck.
Busck received a $450-a-month travel allowance from the city, but he said the stipend didn’t cover the Cadillac’s gas and repair bills. So, in 2002, Thornton leased for Busck a new Buick, which the city recently purchased.
A Denver Post survey of 15 cities in the metro area shows that Busck is one of only two mayors who use city-owned cars daily and the only one to take that car home. The other is Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, who doesn’t actually drive the car but is driven around in it by his security detail, a spokeswoman said.
Only one city manager, Commerce City’s Perry VanDeventer, has a city-owned vehicle.
Many others – mayors, council members and city managers – get a monthly car allowance that ranges from the $50 monthly “discretionary” stipend for Englewood City Council members to the $750 a month that goes to Lakewood City Manager Mike Rock. Boulder City Council members get bus passes.
Most of the rest are reimbursed for the mileage they travel at the IRS-standard 40.5 cents a mile, although several officials infrequently file for reimbursement, if at all. In some cities, elected officials receive no compensation for their driving.
There is no generally accepted standard for compensating elected officials and high-ranking city employees when it comes to car usage, said Sam Mamet, the associate director of the Colorado Municipal League.
Rather, taxpayer advocates and government watchdog groups stress that cities should do what makes the most financial sense and places the smallest burden on taxpayers.
“I don’t know that there is a bright line,” said Pete Maysmith, executive director of Colorado Common Cause, a watchdog group. “On some level, we have to let common sense and, frankly, public input tell us where the line is.”
Which is perhaps why there is such a wide dispute over what’s right and what’s wrong.
The practice of providing city- owned vehicles for public officials is a frequent lightning rod for debate, both locally and nationally. Residents in Northglenn recently raised concerns about the $550 a month the city paid between July 2002 and April 2004 in lease payments for a Ford Excursion that Mayor Kathleen Novak drove. She has since bought the vehicle.
Rock came under fire after his wife got into an accident in his city-owned truck. Rock agreed to give up the vehicle and pay Lakewood close to $9,000 to cover the accident costs. He now gets a car allowance.
Similar controversies over take-home cars have boiled elsewhere – from Georgia to Ohio to Utah. Salt Lake County, Utah, recently announced a major shake-up of its fleet that included tighter controls on take- home cars after a rash of controversies.
Most often, take-home cars are used by public-safety officials, police officers and detectives who need to respond to scenes at all hours. But it is not uncommon for city or county officials to use a city vehicle. County commissioners in Adams, Jefferson and Douglas counties, as well as one in Arapahoe County, use take-home cars.
In spite of the back-to-back controversies in Lakewood and Northglenn, Busck said it is appropriate for him to use a city- owned vehicle. There has been little outcry over the car.
“If it’s a tool that I need to do my job … the city needs to provide it,” Busck said.
VanDeventer, who recently was criticized for using city money to purchase $300 pens as city manager before eventually reimbursing the city for the items, also said it is proper for him to have a take-home car.
“My philosophy is, the city pays me to be out of the office, working on intergovernmental relationships, economic development,” he said. “The vehicle almost becomes your office.”
VanDeventer drives a 2004 Chevy Tahoe that the city bought a year and a half ago for more than $37,000. In the time he has had it, VanDeventer has put 43,900 miles on it, and it has cost the city close to $8,000 to maintain it.
VanDeventer said his contract allows him to use the vehicle for personal use as well, though he says about 90 percent of the miles he drives are on business, including driving to and from work. That means, using his percentage estimate of business miles driven, if the city had reimbursed him for the miles he drove, it would have cost about $16,000.
“We have a philosophy that we give our people the tools they need to do their job,” VanDeventer said. “In my case and in the police chief’s case, that includes a vehicle.”
But not everybody feels that way.
In Boulder, City Manager Frank Bruno does not get a vehicle or a car allowance and rarely, if ever, expenses his mileage, spokeswoman Jodie Carroll said. In Castle Rock and Wheat Ridge, the city managers get a $300-a-month car allowance.
When it comes to elected officials, several rarely bill the city for their mileage.
Wheat Ridge Mayor Gretchen Cerveny said she files for mileage only when she travels to the Colorado Municipal League’s annual conference, this year being held in Vail.
“But around here, I don’t worry about it,” she said.
Westminster Councilman Chris Dittman feels the same way. He said he will expense mileage if he has to travel long distances, but he won’t bill the city for around-the-town driving because he knew that would be part of the deal when he decided to run for office.
Still, Dittman said he has no problem with other elected officials filing for mileage reimbursement.
“I think that it’s hard to throw stones, because each city has its own policies,” Dittman said. “I think accountability is the key.”
To that, Busck said he whole- heartedly agrees, even if his philosophy on vehicle use is different.
“I don’t need the city to do anything for me other than provide me a vehicle for work and some equipment that I need to do my job,” he said.
Staff writer John Ingold can be reached at 720-929-0898 or jingold@denverpost.com.
