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Paid For Commute

Man, I wish I was paid for my commute. 

The state until recently paid for mileage for nine emergency management officials as they commuted to and from work, even though an internal review discovered five years ago it shouldn’t have been paying for commutes for most employees under federal tax rules.

Allowing commutes in state vehicles for other employees led to the state having to pay back taxes to the federal government because it should have treated the perk as a taxable benefit. The state determined in September the nine officials at the Division of Emergency Management should have been required to reimburse the state for the cost of the commutes but has not notified the Internal Revenue Service of the finding.

The division’s policy was changed this fall - after the Journal Sentinel requested mileage logs and an anonymous complaint was filed with the state. The officials are now required to reimburse the state if they use their vehicles to commute. But they do not have to reimburse the state for past commutes and will soon resume having the state bankroll their trips to and from work because the state is providing them new, specialized trucks that can be used for commuting under federal tax laws.

“It’s amazing how major issues can just skip over the heads of people,” said state Sen. Rob Cowles (R-Green Bay), who secured a 2005 audit that found widespread problems with state vehicle policies. “After everything that happened in 2005, every agency should have gotten the message and ratcheted this down and been more frugal.”

Posted by Owen at 1455 hrs
Politics + Politics - Wisconsin

1. Guess they were running government like a business. No doubt they negotiated this benefit like can happen from time to time in private business. More government derangement syndrome at work.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 28, 2009 at 1821 hrs
   
   
   

2. So the audit was done in 2005, and it’s just being addressed now?

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 29, 2009 at 0624 hrs
   
   
   

3. Just scribble something down on paper that makes it OK.  Then use intimidation and violence to steal the money from one group of people and give it to another.  That’s the American way!

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 29, 2009 at 0929 hrs
   
   
   

4. Except, Jay, for the fact that federal tax law (the scribbling you presumably decry) forbids this kind of behavior. So there’s no violence and intimidation enforcing this circumstance.

   Posted by Mike on November 29, 2009 at 1117 hrs
   
   
   

5. Much as Keith would like it to be so, you can’t negotiate away federal tax laws. 

   I work in the private sector, we were made aware of the rules on commuting to and from your job a couple of decades ago.  Taking a business trip is reimbursable milege, getting paid for commuting to and from work is taxable income.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 29, 2009 at 1315 hrs
   
   
   

6. mileage

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 29, 2009 at 1316 hrs
   
   
   

7. No doubt they negotiated this benefit like can happen from time to time in private business

   Once again, Keith, you use only a few pixels to demonstrate the dumb…

   NeoMom’s right.  You’re wrong.  In the late 1980’s, the rules were exactly the same; I know, because the company I worked for had issues on that very point.

   Unlike the State’s administrators, however, we did the LEGAL thing.

   Posted by dad29 on November 29, 2009 at 1404 hrs
   
   
   

8. Government employment has always come with protected status. When you make the rules favoritism to your “class” is expected, whereas private citizens are not quite so fortunate to have such advocacy granted them. Were this the case who would be left to foot the bill?

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 29, 2009 at 1454 hrs
   
   
   

9. totally agree with dad29!!

   Posted by spark plug cross reference on November 29, 2009 at 1759 hrs
   
   
   

10. Except, Jay, for the fact that federal tax law (the scribbling you presumably decry) forbids this kind of behavior. So there’s no violence and intimidation enforcing this circumstance.

    Just scribble something down on paper that makes it OK. 

    Does this not say to scribble something that makes it OK?

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 29, 2009 at 2137 hrs
    
    
    

11. So the audit was done in 2005, and it’s just being addressed now?

    No, not being addressed first now.  Most state agencies, like the one for which I work, have enacted fleet vehicle management policies to prevent this very kind of thing.  Of course, the policies (like the federal tax law) are complicated, and not nearly as easy to understand as the article would insinuate.  But they’re spelled out in writing, and in most agencies, everyone who drives a fleet vehicle is required to read them, and to sign a form acknowledging that they’ve read them. 

    Not sure what happened at Emergency Management, and why they were not following those rules.  It’s a small agency, and maybe they don’t spend as much time worrying about fleet rules as some of the larger agencies that have their own fleet management personnel.  But in the defense of the state employees involved in this case, there are a great many rules that apply to state employment that simply don’t exist at all, or nearly to the same extent, in the private sector—everything from a complete prohibition on accepting anything of value from your customers to stringent regulations on the use of publicly-owned vehicles.  It’s a lot easier to fall afoul of any one of those rules than you would think, and simply having violated one doesn’t make one a goldbrick, or incompetent, or the like.  I think one has to look to intent in cases such as these.

    I know a great many private sector folks who drive around in their employers’ vehicles to transport their kids to and from school, to commute back and forth to and from their homes, and the like.  Because they’re “on call,” they can do it.  I have no problem with it.  But putting your kid in a state car, no matter how urgent the situation, can get your fleet vehicle privileges revoked.  The roads are full of folks jotting down the tag numbers of red-plated cars, calling complaints in to their lawmakers for every perceived misuse - and most of these reports are crap.  How many private sector folks who drive company vehicles have to put up with the prospect of having a routine work-related trip portrayed as a scandal on the front page of the newspaper, or scrutinized by their lawmaker?

    I’m sure there are some state workers who are jobbing the system.  There are private sector employees jobbing the system.  And for all of its benefits, which are substantial, state employment certainly isn’t all it used to be.  Some of us would just like to go to work and do our jobs without being a political football for a bunch of know-nothings who come here to hold forth about how awful we are while they engage in the same behavior (or worse) at their own jobs, and yet fail to see the irony in it all.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on December 01, 2009 at 0841 hrs
    
    
    

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