As much as I love investigative journalism, this seems like a bit of “gotcha” – there’s no rationale given for why these workers have state vehicles.

Some employees are explicitly permitted to use their state cars for personal use, said Gov. Ed Rendell’s spokesman Chuck Ardo, who was assigned his own state vehicle last week.

With gasoline approaching $4 a gallon, driving to and from work has become a costly endeavor for most people.

But not for 3,650 state employees
In addition to providing vehicles for full-time use by Cabinet officers, deputy secretaries, chief counsels, bureau directors and state troopers, among others, taxpayers pick up the cost of maintaining, servicing, insuring and fueling those vehicles.

The annual cost to taxpayers is about $15.6 million, according to an investigation by The Patriot-News as part of a look at how state tax dollars are spent. That figure is based on the state’s $4,274 yearly cost-per-vehicle figure included in the governor’s budget.