DPS Emergency Manager Should Drive a Smaller Car

Roy Roberts, the emergency manager of the Detroit Public Schools, drives around in a $40,000 SUV paid for out of district funds. His old car, a 2005 Dodge Durango, had over 100,000 miles on it and recently needed about a thousand dollars worth of repairs. It was 'in total disrepair' according to Roberts. Meanwhile, the Detroit Federation of Teachers called the purchase wasteful, especially in light of the hardships the district is facing.

We have to go with the DFT on this one. It isn't that it's wrong for someone in Mr. Roberts' position to have a vehicle furnished for his use. When you need to travel frequently by the nature of your job, to have the employer providing a car is not an outlandish idea.

But an SUV? There are at least three reasons why that is unacceptable in these times. For starters, as cash strapped as the DPS is, it would seem that a perfectly good car comparable to the standing of an emergency manager could be had for much less. Secondly, in light of the fact that he is an emergency manager and that the emergency manager law is so relatively controversial, he ought to set a tone of austerity starting right in his own office. Thirdly, with gas prices what they are, it simply makes economic sense to find something with better mileage than an SUV. And we may as well add that in this day and age, a vehicle only six years old which only needed a thousand bucks of repairs, the type of vehicle many of us in fact drive, doesn't sound that bad. 111,000 miles on today's cars really isn't all that many.

To be sure, perhaps there are reasons to have a larger vehicle. Yet off the top of the head, the only one we can come up with is safety. A larger vehicle is undoubtedly safer than a smaller one. But we aren't saying that he should get an Aveo, either, and we cannot imagine any bold direct attacks on Mr. Roberts where an SUV would offer significant extra protection on such a front.

The whole thing smells too much like a matter of prestige. Indeed in today's DPS, on a job which already pays a quarter million dollars a year, it borders on comedic. Even we will admit that in an environment where you're asking your employees to take pay cuts, it is at least vaguely insulting. If our leaders want to set the right tone for their actions, they must begin with a hard look in the mirror.