Heading into the 2003 legislative session, the state of Arizona was facing a $1 billion budget shortfall. As in nearly every other state in the country, revenues had fallen, programs were getting slashed and lawmakers were desperately looking for ways to cut expenses. Journalists were also under the gun to find wasteful spending and report it in print or on the air as fast as possible. We found it in an unusual place: state vehicles that were used so little, the state's own guidelines said they weren't worth the cost of owning them.
Compared to hardcore computer-assisted reporting projects that can take months of spreadsheet and database analysis, this story was pretty simple to do using the skills I learned in a NICAR Boot Camp in January. We found a recent audit of one state agency that referred to an 'efficient use guideline' for state vehicles. It concluded state vehicles needed to be driven at least 10,000 miles per year to justify the cost of acquiring and maintaining the vehicles.
With that minimum mileage standard in mind, we sent a public records request to the Arizona Department of Administration asking for the entire state vehicle database. The department buys most state vehicles and leases them to individual agencies. We specifically asked for the following: license plate numbers; agency the vehicles are leased to; year, make and model of the vehicle; mileage at the beginning of the last fiscal year; and mileage at the end of the last fiscal year.
Querying the data, the result was that nearly half the vehicles were underused, according to the state's own guidelines. We listed the agencies with the most underused vehicles by using queries. So we had a story, but we needed a good way to tell it. My photographer and I performed surveillance next to one of the lots, and watched as several state vehicles just sat there day after day. Next, I contacted the state Department of Education and got a list of relatively inexpensive state programs that were facing the budget axe.
We ended up profiling a program for underprivileged preschoolers and another that helped adults get their high school diplomas. The story boiled down to this: 'State leaders say there is no money lying around to fund programs like preschool and adult education, but we found lots of extra tax dollars - literally 'parked' all over the state Capitol.'