Lee and Tisch discuss vehicle capitalization changes
Lee asks about vehicle capitalization savings of $103.7M across FY27-FY30. Tisch expresses enthusiasm, explaining the change in state law allows police emergency response vehicles to be capitalized over five years, protecting fleet purchases from expense budget cuts.
For vehicle capitalization, exec plan includes savings of $103.7 million across FY27 to FY30 from utilizing capital funds instead of expense funds for vehicle costs.
And could you explain what changes that are
allowed these vehicles to be capital eligible?
Yes, we are ecstatic about this because the NYPD's fleet over the past few years, the state of it, has been disgraceful.
With an unacceptable portion of the fleet being either out of service or beyond its useful life or close to beyond its useful life.
These vehicles are crucial parts of our operation, and in my opinion, it is incumbent on the city and on this department to keep them refreshed.
When previously they had not been capitally eligible, so we could only buy new vehicles with expense funding.
And over the past four years, I think with the exception of last year, the city continually cut expense funding as part of expense reductions for NYPD fleets.
So the NYPD bought like shockingly few.
Vehicles several years in a row, which really takes its toll.
We needed a change in state law to allow our fleet to be capitally eligible, both on the marked and unmarked side.
We saw it as a no-brainer.
We believed that our fleet
met all of the requirements for capital eligibility in terms of, for example, the five-year useful life.
And we were thrilled to see in the governor's budget the change to that state law that allows our fleet to be capitally eligible.
I just want to be clear, this is not just a good thing for this year, this is a good thing for future years, right?