CLEARFIELD – During the Tuesday meeting of the Clearfield County Commissioners, a draft proposal for a vehicle usage policy was put forward for consideration.
Commissioners could vote on placing the policy into effect as early as next week.
The reason for this policy being pushed forward is the current lack of any official policy for vehicle owned by the county and used by county personnel. The current version of the usage policy will affect all employees of the county whether they be elected, appointed or otherwise.
Most of the policy covers obeying traffic laws, keeping the vehicles clean and forbidding vehicle use for non-work purposes. County employees will also be required to take an approved driver’s safety course before driving county vehicles.
County vehicles themselves will be kept at designated locations and must be picked up while working.
Exceptions are made for county employees on mandatory 24-hour “on call” positions to allow them to keep a vehicle at home to answer calls. Those employees will be charged $3 per commute between home and work location, whether it being either an office or “field” location, for tax purposes.
Personal use, drinking within six hours of driving, tobacco use and cell phone use were listed as strictly prohibited within this draft policy.
The policy will put the enforcement in the hands of the department heads who will then report violations to the board of commissioners.
The county has greater than 40 vehicles in use currently.
The commissioners will hold their next regular meeting Tuesday at 10 a.m. in the courthouse annex.