Audit finds no oversight for Nassau’s ‘take-home’ vehicles

Nassau Comptroller Jack Schnirman says oversight is needed for the hundreds of county employees who use free cars on and off the job.
According to the comptroller’s audit, there are 383 vehicles in Nassau County's take-home vehicle fleet. Schnirman says from 2015-2018, there was no oversight of the vehicles.
He claims there was not a complete inventory list of the vehicles and no process to assign who took home the vehicles. Schnirman says there was nothing in place to ensure that employees complied with the motor vehicle policies.
"There's no formal policy in place to ensure that vehicles are returned in a timely manner after an employee retires, resigns or is terminated," he told News 12.
Schnirman says in one instance, a county employee had retired and they were unable to track down his take-home vehicle for several weeks.
"There's no possible explanation why former employees should be in possession of county property after leaving county employment,” says Schnirman. “It's impossible to put a certain dollar figure on it but I think we can all agree that it's waste we can't afford."
Schnirman says he's made several recommendations to the new administration that include keeping an accurate master list of the fleet and who is assigned to each vehicle. He says, so far, the administration is complying with all the recommendations.
The comptroller says he will revisit the issue in six months to see what progress has been made.