Who will drive Miami-Dade’s $81 million in new vehicles?

As Miami-Dade commissioners unanimously authorized $81.8 million to buy police vehicles, mobile equipment and other heavy and light feel vehicles this fiscal year, they again debated the powers and functions to be given to constitutional officers to be elected in 2024.

Raquel Regalado proposed an amendment to include a provision in the contracts of any purchase or finance agreements to permit the assignment, lease or transfer of the vehicle and the assumption of any outstanding finance payments to be made on the vehicle to the appropriate county constitutional officer.

Also, the amendment proposed that staff prepares a plan for the disposal of those vehicles and their payments if the county no longer needs them and the constitutional officer refuses to accept the assets and financial obligations.

Commissioners ultimately rejected the amendment as they argued it was a discussion of constitutional officers’ powers that should be brought up in a larger proposal.

“Your amendment should be a separate item specific to when we have constitutional officers assuming responsibility, assets that have been shared countywide and through different departments [and] now need to be handled with the constitutional officer,” said Sally Heyman. “I don’t believe it belongs here; it’s nice and you have to deal with vehicles, but it should be a separate item dealing with constitutional officers.”

Commissioners Joe A. Martinez, Rebeca Sosa, Eileen Higgins and Jose “Pepe” Diaz agreed. Ms. Regalado continued to argue that it was legally difficult to dispose of those vehicles after documents for purchase or lease are already signed.

“This is actually proactive since we haven’t negotiated the agreement that we’re putting in this clause should we need it because of the creation of the constitutional officers,” Ms. Regalado said.

“I think not only should it be a separate item, it should be much more robust item because, quite frankly, what are we going to do with the pens and pencils that are in the supply cabinet that we’ve got, so I’m thinking this needs to be more robustly done,” said Commissioner Higgins.

Chairman Diaz said he was briefed, and the county has an allotted number of cars that it could get for the police department, but if the resolution was not approved, they would lose the vehicles to other departments in line for them.

“The other thing we also have to take into consideration is covid has significantly impacted all industries and supply chain,” said Alex Alfonso, of the Internal Services Department’s fleet management. “If we do not start ordering vehicles, then we will miss production deadlines, which will only lengthen our ability to even try to order a vehicle, and that’s for any of these departments.”

In responding to questions, Assistant County Attorney Oren Rosenthal said the item included leases that may extend after 2025 when constitutional officers would be seated. He said staff could negotiate the provision in the leases, seeing that the vehicles might be transferred in the future to the constitutional officers.

“It’s clearly policy prerogative of the board to address this holistically if they want to or on these issues as the necessity arrives,” Mr. Rosenthal said. Commissioner Regalado ultimately recognized that she wanted the contracts. “If you all want to leave it in the hands of the administration so that they will effectuate this item without us voting on it, I’m happy to do that,” she said.

The resolution, unanimously passed without amendment, is to buy 1,457 vehicles. It is financially supported by the current budget and previously approved carryover for purchases not made last fiscal year, and additional purchases requested by departments after the budget was adopted, a memorandum from Chief Operations Officer Jimmy Morales says.

Some 2,327 county vehicles – about 24% of the fleet – are over 10 years old. Departments tend consider a vehicle for replacement if it exceeds 10 years of service life or has over 100,000 odometer miles.

“Failure to replace aged and high mileage vehicles will result in higher maintenance costs, limited parts availability, and reduction in operational reliability which can impact service delivery of the respective departments,” Mr. Morales wrote.

The police department is the biggest solicitor, seeking 570 vehicles for roughly $14 million. It is followed by the Water and Sewer Department seeking 285 vehicles for $17.5 million; then by the Parks, Recreation and Open Spaces (145), Solid Waste Management (144), and Transportation and Public Works (117).

In his memorandum, Mr. Morales says maintaining vehicles with over 100,000 miles and over 10 years can generate an “excessive average annual maintenance cost of approximately $3,110 for light vehicles and $16,724 for heavy vehicles per year when compared to newer vehicles which are under manufacturer warranty for the major repairs”.

The memorandum also details that departments are moving forward with the direction of the mayor to buy 10% of the light fleet as battery electric vehicles with the aim to increase that goal by an additional 10% or more each year and ultimately convert the entire county light fleet to battery electric vehicles by 2030.