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Stewards of the City of Seattle's business and financial services Fred Podesta, Director

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Fleet Services Division

Fleet Management Overview

Seattle internally manages its own fleet. The Fleets Services Division of the Fleets and Facilities Department (FFD) purchases, maintains, and repairs the City's vehicles and specialized equipment, including cars, light trucks, fire apparatus, and heavy equipment. Seattle City Light owns all of its own vehicles and Seattle Public Utilities owns its heavy-duty fleet; both departments pay FFD to maintain their vehicles. Most departments, including Police, Fire and Parks, lease most of their vehicles from FFD, which provides regular routine maintenance and repair of the vehicles as part of their the lease. The division also manages a centralized motor pool, and provides fuel for the City's fleet.

In 2008, FFD hired an outside consultant, Chatham Consulting, Inc., to assess fleet operations. The consultant evaluated FFD's current practices, equipment and facilities; identified and proposed appropriate best practices; and developed an implementation plan for the resulting recommendations. In addition, in 2005, Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) hired Mercury Fleet Management Consulting to review its fleet operations. Because SPU's fleet is managed partially by SPU and FFD, the study included a review of FFD's competitiveness and internal business processes. While both studies' overall assessments of FFD's operations were favorable, they did find room for improvement and city staff have been implementing the best practices recommendations from these studies. Reforms in fleet management have saved taxpayers more than $3 million so far.