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NEWS RELEASE

July 29, 2008

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County Take-Home Fleet will be reduced from 207 vehicles to 88 vehicles

Howard Executive Ulman Announces Changes to County Take-Home Vehicle Policy

ELLICOTT CITY, MD – In an ongoing effort to reduce county government costs, Howard County Executive Ken Ulman announced today that as of September 1, 2008, a new take-home vehicle policy will be implemented by Howard County Government. Of the 207 take-home vehicles now in service, 119 of those will no longer be taken home by County employees. “Take-home vehicles were never meant as a benefit to the employee; they were meant to benefit County services; those County services will not be affected by this new policy,” said Ulman. “This is just another way of being more efficient with our resources, while still being effective.” The County believes the new policy will cut overall fleet costs by as much as $700,000 a year.

Three months ago Executive Ulman initiated an internal review of the County’s take- home vehicle policy. In general, take-home vehicles are for employees who are “on call” and/or for employees who are routinely called back to work for emergencies. Over the past several weeks, County Executive Ulman and Chief Administrative Officer Lonnie Robbins met with the heads of the departments of Police, Fire & Rescue Services, Public Works and the Sheriff’s Office to insure that the specific needs of these emergency responders are still met once this revised policy takes effect.

This policy change is part of County Executive Ulman’s ongoing plan to cut government costs while maintaining critical government services. Other cost-cutting measures have included: combining employees from county government, county schools, the community college and the library system under one negotiated health insurance contract for an overall savings of $3.7 million; consolidating the county run television studio with Howard Community College (saving $500,000); closing down the county run Print Shop (saving $500,000); and having the County’s Department of Finance collect recordation taxes instead of the state (saving $600,000).