An assistant fire chief uses his city car to commute from Loveland. A police evidence sergeant drives a cruiser home to Harrison. And the city official responsible for maintaining the city's fleet takes home a Ford Taurus.

        They are three of the 217 city employees who take their city cars home each day. All told, they drive more than 1 million miles to and from work each year.

        Another 13 employees — including the city manager and department heads — get monthly car allowances of $250 to $500 a month.

        Councilman Pat DeWine said those cars are evidence of “sloppy management practices that cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

        In response to Mr. DeWine's requests for information about city car policies, Acting City Manager Tim Riordan has given employees with city cars until today to justify their use or turn them in. Those with emergency vehicles have until April 1.

        City policy and state law allow city employees to take cars home. But city policy says that determination should be based on need and “may not be made as compensation, perquisite or a fringe benefit to the employee.”

        The policy also requires employees with city cars to keep daily logs documenting how the car is used outside of working hours — and must justify why the employee needs the car 24 hours a day.

        But Mr. Riordan found that only one of the city's 13 departments — Water Works — kept those detailed records. In other departments, including the city manager's office itself, the records are inconsistent or non-existent.

        Mr. DeWine said he understands that take-home cars may be necessary for employees in some departments that are on-call 24-hours a day.

        “What I don't understand is someone, for example, in Fleet Services, why they need a city car just to drive to and from work every day,” he said. “In some cases, we're providing cars for people who commute from places like Harrison, places like Cleves, places like North Bend — places way outside the city.”

        The city car policy is the third recent initiative by the Republican councilman to save taxpayer money in a year that the city's facing a $27 million deficit.

        The city manager recently cut $109,000 from cell phone usage, and is examining management overtime practices that cost the city $2.3 million last year.

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