(AP) — The agency that manages Louisiana’s vehicles doesn’t ensure the state only buys cars it needs and doesn’t properly monitor the ones the state does own, according to an audit released Monday.The review of the Louisiana Property Assistance Agency shows many of the 13,200 vehicles aren’t needed, and the agency doesn’t protect against employee abuse of a policy that lets them take cars home, said Legislative Auditor Steve Theriot’s office.”The LPAA does not ensure there are an appropriate number of vehicles in the vehicle fleet, it could improve its home storage and abuse complaint process, and it does not have reliable data or reporting,” the audit said.Underused vehicles aren’t turned in as required by law, and the agency doesn’t review as many vehicles as it should to determine if they are underused, the audit says. No written policies exist to review and approve cases in which state employees take cars home, and the agency doesn’t track vehicle abuse complaints to identify repeat offenders, the review says.The performance audit of the agency, which is under the governor’s Division of Administration, comes as Commissioner of Administration Angele Davis already has been working to shrink the state fleet and has put a freeze on buying more vehicles.Davis set a goal of reducing state-owned vehicles by at least 10 percent by December. Cutting down on cars is part of the Jindal administration’s plan for slashing government costs amid several years of projected budget shortfalls.Davis said she agreed with the audit’s findings and repeated her commitment to cut down on state-owned cars and end misuse. She said in 2008, Louisiana had the ninth-largest vehicle fleet among state governments nationwide.”My suspicions about the degree of underutilization of the fleet were confirmed when I read that your staff determined six agencies only used half of their fleet on average 50 percent on any given day,” Davis wrote. “Your findings and recommendations reaffirm that my initiatives to better manage the state’s fleet assets are right on target.”The audit says Louisiana’s fleet of state-owned cars, trucks, vans and other vehicles grew from 11,924 in April 2004 to 13,245 by July 2009, an 11 percent increase. The vehicles are spread across state agencies, boards, commissions, departments and other offices and cost $284 million to buy, according to Theriot’s office. More than $31 million was spent on fuel in 2008 and another $6.4 million on maintenance.Theriot’s office suggested the fleet management agency should review the possibility of statewide motor pools that use a combination of state-owned cars and rental car contracts to cut down on costs. Oregon, Vermont, Oklahoma and Colorado have similar programs.- – – -Contact The Daily Reveille’s news staff at [email protected]