With last year's gas prices at an all time high, the Abilene Police Department was required to spend a little bit more money than they budgeted for. However, this year with gas prices continuing to drop, they didn't have to spend as much of taxpayer money. "We didn't spend as much money as we expected, as much as we budgeted this year because fuel expenses did go down.
The city administration will obviously look at that and see where that money can be used for other projects," Assistant Chief, Stan Standridge, with the Abilene Police Department says.
Patrol units are constantly having to fill up their gas tanks. Skip Liones, a City Service Station Tech says, "day and night, they're at the pumps." I
In 2008, over 140,000 gallons of gas was used by patrol cars alone.
Standridge adds,"Every day the officers drive on average 80 to 110 miles per day."
Last year's spike in gas prices forced the Abilene Police Department to make some policy adjustments.
Standridge says, "For the first time, we doubled units. There are many calls that are going to occur throughout the day that necessitate two officers responding. What we did was put two-man units on both sides of the town."
This allowed them to cut the gas costs of an entire vehicle.
Standridge says,"Another cost saving measure we did was we started turning cars off whenever they were idle and not occupied."
But now with dropping gas prices, the Police Department is no longer forced to double up or to constantly turn their vehicles on and off.
Standridge says,"We all know the economic impact of high gas prices. This year, obviously that economic impact isn't as high. However, we as a police department are called to be good stewards with your money so we are going to still continue with cost-saving measures as it relates to gas."
