When Ronald Reagan was Governor of California, he conducted a survey to identify waste and inefficiencies in state spending as one of his first actions in office. Approximately 250 private sector leaders, with expertise spanning every line of activity in California, volunteered to examine the state’s habits and provide recommendations that would reduce any unnecessary cost for the state.

While a member of the Governor’s task force was observing state employees, he noticed that one worker was folding oversize state forms to fit into standard size manila folders and then subsequently placing them into standard size filing cabinets. It was obvious to the task force member that when they doubled the form over to get it to fit, the capacity of the file cabinet was cut in half. When asked why it was being done this way, the state employee answered, “Well, the state forms are printed in this size, and it’s bigger than the file… They’ve always been printed that way.” The task force member picked up the phone, called the state’s printer and ordered them to immediately change the size of the forms to fit the folder.

Reagan later claimed that this brilliant insight allowed California to purchase 4,200 fewer file cabinets each year. President Clinton made similarly critical remark during the National Performance Review initiative as his own brand of reinvention: “Our goal is to make the entire federal government both less expensive and more efficient, and to change the culture of our national bureaucracy away from complacency and entitlement toward initiative and empowerment.”

It has been proven time and time again that the efficiency of the entire country at the local, state and federal levels is significantly increased when our leaders in the public and private sectors come together and borrow from each other’s expertise and best practices. And one area in which that can almost immediately be accomplished is in law enforcement patrol vehicle operations.

Patrol vehicle operations are one of the highest expenses burdening taxpayers today for law enforcement services. To get a little more granular on how these costs quickly add up, agencies spend up to $3,500 for one lightbar to place on a retail car’s roof to make it an ‘emergency vehicle.’ The partition (you’ve seen them in taxis – the metal divider between the front and rear seat) can cost up to $750. We then pay for labor to have these and all of the other law enforcement technologies haphazardly retrofitted into the passenger compartment where officers are expected to work. Then, at the other end of the vehicle’s life, agencies have to again incur the labor costs associated with decommissioning and reselling their patrol cars – essentially, the original retrofit process in reverse. Wouldn’t our communities be better off using these funds to put (or retain, in the cases where budget cuts are cutting to the bone) more officers out on the streets?

I had occasion to meet with a procurement expert last week. When I asked him how much he thought his local police department should be spending on a lightbar based on his experience, he quickly answered, “$200-300 a piece.” I had to break out the smelling salts after I shared with him the price he actually pays as a taxpayer. The truth is it doesn’t need to be this way. Like replacing over-sized forms with more efficient standard sizes, it’s time our law enforcement community had a purpose-built patrol vehicle! Dramatic savings are available for each and every U.S. taxpayer nationwide.

By taking a clean sheet approach to law enforcement emergency vehicle operations, Carbon Motors will eliminate inefficiencies from a cradle to cradle full circle approach. It has partnered with the best automotive and law enforcement suppliers to create a fully integrated, purpose-built technology platform directly from the manufacturer that will be backed by a comprehensive 24/7/365 service plan, also purpose-built with help from our law enforcement customers.

The Carbon E7 will immediately result in fuel savings of up to 40%, it will reduce fleet maintenance costs, improve durability over the life of the vehicle, and will broaden the capabilities of the law enforcement mission (see Serious Mission. Serious Machine.) due to its purpose-built, turnkey nature. If the entire fleet were to be converted to Carbon E7 vehicles, we estimate that the country could save on the order of $10 – $20 billion taxpayer dollars over a period of ten years.

Just because “it has always been done this way” does not make it the most economical or responsible way to get the job done. Complacency kills and this is no time for apathy. It’s time for an initiative that will exercise common sense and conduct some cross-functional assessments of significant wasteful spending. Let’s stop filling retail cars with the over-sized aftermarket equipment, power supplies, attachment devices and excess wiring to fit the file cabinet of law enforcement patrol duties. The Carbon Motors ATVM loan needs to be approved so we can give our first responders the right size folder for their file cabinet!

Stacy Dean Stephens
Chief Brand Officer and Director of Marketing Communications
Carbon Motors Corporation

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