By Andrew McIntosh, The Sacramento Bee
May 1, 2006
 
A growing number of state workers are balking at using their personal cars or trucks for work-related trips and are renting cars instead to protest state mileage rates they feel are too low.
 
Workers complain that the state's 34-cent mileage rate is unfair, especially with gas hitting $3 a gallon, and well below the IRS-approved rate of 44.5 cents a mile. So state workers are exercising their right to request either a state fleet vehicle or a rental, forgoing the convenience of using their own vehicle.
 
The mileage rate backlash is boosting costs in several departments and hurting productivity.
 
Sharon Hamilton, a senior tax auditor and training coordinator at the Board of Equalization in Riverside, said frustrated auditors in her district office are now requesting rentals for most trips.
 
"The price of gas is so high," she said. "Many would prefer to take their own cars, but the refund rate for mileage is too low.
 
"It also takes time to go pick up and return a rental car. There is a cost to that, and the state should raise its rates."
 
Several departments have urged the Department of Personnel Administration to boost the state mileage rate to the IRS rate. Three times, senior state officials have rejected the requests, internal documents show.
 
A new mileage rate review is under way, DPA spokeswoman Lynelle Jolley said.
 
Board of Equalization auditors started griping about mileage rates when gas prices surged last fall, and their bosses took their concerns seriously.
 
BOE Deputy Director Karen Johnson complained about the state's low mileage rates in a private letter to DPA Director Michael Navarro on Oct. 17.
 
"With the recent increase in gasoline prices, employees at the BOE are beginning to opt out of using their personal vehicle in the scope of their employment," Johnson wrote.
 
Noting that their employment contract does not oblige BOE auditors to use their own vehicles, Johnson said state rates had put the BOE in an untenable position.
 
"We will either have to rent vehicles or provide state vehicles for our employees in order for them to perform their essential duties of generating revenue for the state," Johnson wrote. "Both of these options will only increase the overall costs of the state as opposed to raising the mileage reimbursement."
 
The BOE has spent $109,000 more on auditor car rentals since last July than it did for the same period a year earlier, spokeswoman Anita Gore said.
 
The discontent is spreading.
 
Lydia Harris, a Franchise Tax Board auditor in Oakland who travels to Sacramento, Santa Rosa and San Jose for audits, said the state mileage rate is a sore point among FTB auditors, too.
 
Harris, a 12-year FTB veteran, said it can take an hour to get a rental car, refuel and return it, cutting time for auditing work.
 
"Auditors are renting more cars, and this is costing the state in more ways than one," she said. While Harris uses her own car, she said that will soon change if gas prices keep rising.
 
In her October letter, the BOE's Johnson urged Navarro's department to adopt a policy linking state mileage rates to IRS rates, saying her agency relies on auditor travel to generate revenue.
 
Navarro finally answered Johnson in early January, saying the Governor's Office and unidentified undersecretaries discussed raising mileage rates three times but declined to do so, citing budget pressures and fiscal concerns.
 
Jolley said the DPA decided to revisit the issue again after gas topped $3 a gallon and collective bargaining started with state worker unions.
 
"We recognize we need to be prepared to address it," she said.
 
The Schwarzenegger administration's Cabinet office must approve any mileage rate increase because many agencies' budgets would be affected, she added.