Reduce GSA Motor Vehicle Pools and Reduce the Upgrades in Vehicles

The GSA provides a means of Departments and Agencies to have Vehicles. This is beneficial in that Government Vehicles are required for Government Business. The down side is that there is insufficient and timely oversight of the fleets of vehicles retained by various agencies and department and their subordinate elements.

As an example; there is a local US Forest Service Headquarters building in town. Behind this is a very large “Motor Pool” of White GSA vehicles that predominantly sit in the Motor Pool lot each and avery day (many of them). If one goes into the building, there is a desk - often with no one at it, with government workers back in various offices not to be seen unless you “Ring the Bell”. These workers are not out driving the vehicles in the rear; they are still sitting there. The vehicles in the lot are usually higher end Ford, GM, etc… 4 wheel drives - probably retailing for $85K to $100K each. If one looks at a local “Company” with vehicles; their vehicles disappear from the lot during work hours with very few on the lot - not the case for a Government Motor Pool. Represents Billions of Taxpayer dollars being poorly used, or not used effectively. Looking at the Roads around the area one will see old Forest Service Green vehicles still in use by individuals or companies; but the Federal Employ would be offended to have to drive an old vehicle.

Although eradication of the GSA motor Pools is probably not a good idea; significant reductions and controls of the Vehicles required, reduction of costs to mid or lower cost vehicles without frills, and tailoring the vehicle to requirements (i.e. no 4wd for just tooling around the city and paved roads) is an are where focused review and modifications to inventory and usage should be considered.

In the 1980’s the Chrysler “K” Car was synonymous with GSA Motor Pool vehicles. Like many fleet vehicles, these were the “base” models, severely lacking the bells and whistles of higher end models.

While the K Cars are no longer around, most of the fleet that I’ve seen is Dodge Chargers or Ford Focus. Again, base models.

Obviously there are going to be exceptions like your Forest Service. It makes sense that they might need a 4x4 for traversing some of the areas in the forest, but I suspect they are again closer to base models, and not high end upgrades.

In fact, by looking at the GSAfleet.gov site where they sell vehicles that are replaced, I don’t see any that would fit the $85k-$100k new range - A brand new Ford F150 4x4 can be had at $47k (and fleet pricing would probably drop that even lower).

On the second point of vehicles sitting idle, that does sound like a place that maybe DOGE can identify and reduce the fleet size to go along with the reduction in workforce size.