In the City of Tonganoxie, 11 employees take vehicles home each night.

Among them are six full-time Tonganoxie police officers and five full-time public work employees.

The reason for taking vehicles home? Faster response to emergency calls.

“If there are water breaks in the middle of the night [city crews] can bring the trucks in with equipment already on them,” said Kathy Bard, assistant city administrator.

According to city policy, only full-time employees who live within the city limits are allowed to take vehicles home, with a few exceptions. At the time the policy took effect, two public works employees, Butch Rogers, city superintendent, and Jerry Stockman, lived outside of the city limits. Bard said they were grandfathered into the new policy to allow them to continue taking vehicles home.

Rogers lives west of Tonganoxie near McLouth and Stockman lives just outside of the city limits.

“I’m 11 miles from [Tonganoxie] and if I’m sitting at home and my personal vehicle is not there it could be a long time until I get a ride,” Rogers said.

He also added that there isn’t enough parking for the vehicles at the current public works facility and a lot of tools and equipment kept in the truck would not be safe at the current facility.

Each month a different city staffer is the main person on call to respond to emergencies, but if that employee is not available, another crew member will be called to respond. Each person on the list takes a vehicle home. Rogers said they receive off-hour calls about twice a week.

The police department also takes vehicles home for quicker responses to emergency situations.

“We do have emergencies and we don’t want them rushing into an emergency in their private vehicle,” said council member Paula Crook. “It would be safer in a police car.”

But unlike the public works crew, all of the officers that take vehicles home live in the city limits.

Police Chief Kenneth Carpenter does not live in the city limits. He does not take a police vehicle home, but he is given a $250 monthly travel allowance.

While city crews aren’t allowed to use city vehicles for personal use, there is currently no mileage records kept on public works vehicles to monitor vehicle usage and gas consumption.

Mike Vestal, Tonganoxie mayor, said the police department has officers log how many miles their vehicle had when they started their shift and how many it had at the end of their shift to monitor miles and to see if officers are actually patrolling the city.

There is no log system for public works vehicles. Bard said that gas usage and mileage is checked monthly and is compared to an expected use of the vehicle. If the mileage or gas usage is higher than expected the person who drove the vehicle is questioned about the difference.

Bard and Rogers said that the city residents provide the best monitoring system because if they see a city vehicle in an unusual place they will call city hall. They said they haven’t received a phone call they couldn’t explain in a long time.

“The city watches out for itself,” Bard said. “There is no monitoring system, but people do watch.”

Crook doesn’t think this type of monitoring gives an accurate picture of how the vehicles are being used. She said she has received phone calls from residents that said they have seen city vehicles at locations that couldn’t be explained.

Crook wants the city to stop paying for city employees to take city vehicles home because the current gas prices are too high and because the city is paying for a $2 million public works facility with plenty of parking space.

“Everybody is having to tighten their belts and I think they city should tighten their belts too,” she said.