City Of Tulsa Finds Surplus Vehicles To Sell Saturday

By Emory Bryan, The News On 6

TULSA, OK -- Several rows of cars and trucks are City of Tulsa surplus that go on the auction block Saturday. They're just a portion of about $400,000 worth of property the city has up for auction.

But even with all these cars leaving the city fleet - the city recently discovered many more are barely used at all.

 "We had vehicles that weren't driven any miles in our inventory, and that has a cost to it," said Chief Allen LaCroix of the Tulsa Fire Department.

Mayor Kathy Taylor asked the Fire Chief to review the city's entire fleet - and look for underused vehicles.

He found plenty that almost always sat idle.

"We found them in every department - a little more than 220 vehicles we can surplus from the city's fleet,"

The City of Tulsa owns 2,583 vehicles.  The review found 241 to send to the surplus auction.

Taking those vehicles out of service saves $235,000 a year in fuel and maintenance. Selling them is estimated to bring in another $300,000.

Altogether that's more than a half million dollar difference.

The city has an auction twice a year to get rid of old property, whether it's computers or cars.  Because they've realized so many cars are underutilized, they'll have another auction in December and 220 vehicles will be on the block."

"The big push to get money back into the city's budget is the sale we'll have in December is to get rid of all those cars; they're underutilized," said Tricia Cummings, City of Tulsa.

The money from these auctions goes into the general fund. The money from special auction of cars - will be unexpected new money - perhaps more than $300,000 dollars.