Audit: 7 of 11 county motor‑pool vehicles went unused in 2025, auditor says

County Auditor Chris Harding presented a performance audit of Salt Lake County’s government‑center fleet, telling the council that several motor‑pool and assigned vehicles were underused and that recordkeeping mismatches make rightsizing decisions difficult. Harding said the audit reviewed 158 vehicles tied to the government center — 11 motor‑pool vehicles and 147 assigned vehicles — and tested 12 months of utilization data from Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, 2025.

Harding described the audit’s most striking early finding: “of those 11 motor pool vehicles, 7 of them were not driven at all during the year, not not once.” He said 80 of the 147 assigned vehicles fell below the fleet board’s 6,000‑mile threshold but cautioned that the threshold is arbitrary and many departments have mission‑driven reasons for low mileage that were not documented. The audit identified odometer and monthly‑report inconsistencies and found AssetWorks could not produce combined odometer‑fuel‑maintenance year‑to‑date reports, contributing to data gaps.

The report included four findings and 10 recommendations; fleet staff agreed to implement the most significant items by the end of September and to complete medium‑risk items by March 31, 2027, with full reconciliation of records by Jan. 1, 2027. Council members asked about replacement schedules, sale proceeds from retired vehicles and whether AI tools could aid maintenance and replacement planning. Fleet staff and the mayor’s office said new fleet software (brought online in August) includes analytics and that vehicle‑auction proceeds are returned to the original fund that purchased the vehicle.

Harding urged the council to provide oversight as fleet implements the recommendations and said the audit office will follow up no earlier than six months from the report. “Without that data,” he said, “department heads … can’t make a good decision.”