FORT WORTH, Texas — During a Fort Worth City Council work session Tuesday, the city's police chief answered questions about the department's take-home practices.
"There is a form, a take-home vehicle request form," said FWPD Chief Neil Noakes.
Noakes explained his department's take-home vehicle process. That process came under fire during Tuesday's council work session. In June, Councilwoman Elizabeth Beck requested a detailed report for city departments with take-home vehicles.
"I asked for this IR because I got a sense something was awry," said Fort Worth City Councilwoman Elizabeth Beck.
Beck believes the take-home vehicle usage is costing taxpayers -- especially due to how far police officers are traveling with the vehicles. She has personally seen Fort Worth police vehicles on interstates nowhere near the city. The report Beck requested includes a map showing how many and how far employees drive their assigned vehicles outside city limits.
The report included take-home vehicles for the Fort Worth Fire Department, Public Works and others. Beck shared that last June, when she requested the information, some departments made immediate changes by self-auditing whether assigned vehicles being taken home were necessary. But some officers, according to the map from the report presented to the council, are still driving their take-home vehicles as far as two hours away from the city of Fort Worth.
"That is obscene to me when I look at that map," said Beck.
Beck stressed that she is not against take-home vehicles altogether. But she went on to say it needs to make sense since taxpayer money funds the fuel, maintenance and purchase of city vehicles.
The map shows the Fort Worth Police Department has 257 people who drive their assigned vehicles home but stay within city limits. But there are 372 who drive home outside city limits. Beck believes it's just costing taxpayers too much and that's why she brought it up.
"I can't speak to all of the departments," Beck said. "But I know specifically that last year Fort Worth PD was over their fuel budget by $2 million."
"Once this came up, we started looking into it," Noakes said. "Any blame or any fingers pointed, it all goes right here."
Part of Noakes' statement on this says, "We are comparing our policy to that of other large cities for upcoming decisions on who should and should not have a take-home vehicle."
Noakes is convinced restrictions on vehicle usage will have an impact on the morale of the police department. But Noakes is huge on accountability, another reason he took responsibility for his police department's situation.
The media relations office at FWPD sent additional information to WFAA, explaining that the department is continuing research to find reasonable adjustments in policy. This will likely result in some officers losing the ability to take a vehicle home, but no changes have been decided as of yet.
Noakes said he takes responsibility for not ensuring that all employees are adequately logging their take-home usage and will be working to make sure everyone is following policy in that regard. No other immediate changes are being made, and FWPD will make sure that all of the consequences of any policy change are carefully weighed and justified before making it. Currently, each officers' chain of command approves and monitors assigned take-home vehicles.
Fort Worth produced a video once the take-home vehicle questions surfaced from Beck. The video includes how the police department has used it as an incentive to recruit people.
When it comes to other police departments in North Texas, some of them have similar take-home vehicle policies.
The Dallas Police Department, for example, issues take-home vehicles to supervisors, SWAT along with specialized units. The department says it tracks usage.
The Arlington Police Department assigns take-home vehicles to ranks deputy chiefs and above, along with specialized units like K-9 handlers.
WFAA learned that the Lake Worth police chief follows a city policy that only allows certain command staff, specialized units, school resource officers and on-call detective to take vehicles home. They also have a 20-mile limit outside of Lake Worth for officers assigned to take-home vehicles.
Although there is a take-home vehicle policy in place for all Fort Worth City employees, the current policy will be re-examined to make sure there is accountability across the board.
Beck said, "City management has promised to make sure that we are staying on top of this policy."
The presentation outlines how far some assigned vehicles are being driven by city employees.