Instead, according to the county's own fiscal analysts, it could cost $8,000 a year per cruiser on Sheriff's Office cars alone.

Translation: a million-dollar annual hit to taxpayers.

"It's astonishing," Darrin Casper, County Council fiscal analyst said Friday. "Our findings are fundamentally different from the consultants."

Under the current system, a sheriff's Ford Crown Victoria can be purchased and fully equipped for $24,500. If sold just one year later, the county can get $20,500. But wait two years, the value plummets to $12,500. And after four years, Casper says, the police cruisers nab less than $4,000 at auction houses.

"We pulled invoices. We took a pretty hard look at it," he said. "Right now it looks like we should continue the rotation program" for sheriff's cars.

A consulting firm paid by the county says otherwise. And that has caused a conundrum for a mayor's office intent on rehabbing the fleet's reputation - sullied over the past year in the wake of a series of scandals.

Paul Lauria, a fleet consultant with Maryland-based Mercury Associates, says the recommendation to shift the rotation to three or four years is still in draft form. But he stands by the findings.

"If somebody wants to take issue with them, we welcome scrutiny of our work and we are prepared to defend it," Lauria said about the study commissioned in April. "As for now, we're sticking to our numbers."

Meantime, the county's analysis mirrors the message of former fleet Manager Nick Morgan, who was fired in June. He says he showed the same numbers to public works officials, "but no one seemed to believe us."

"It validates what we've been doing all along," Morgan said Friday. "The program works. It always has worked. It's too bad it's been so damaged and people have maligned it so much."

Public Works Director John Patterson has said proposed changes to the fleet's operations would save taxpayers millions over the next decade.

Since then, officials from public works and the mayor's office frequently flagged rapid rotation as the next program bound for the chopping block.

The fleet division has been folded into a newly created Administrative Services Department. But a resolution on how often to rotate has been sluggish - presumably because of the consultant's research.

Doug Willmore, the county's chief administrative officer, points out that the county "only" paid $15,000 for the study. "When you pay that, what you get is a model," he said.

Willmore calls the disparity between the two recommendations "a local aberration" since Salt Lake County is the only entity that swaps out police cruisers after a year.

And Sheriff Aaron Kennard says the suggestion to keep vehicles longer simply "doesn't make sense."

"No one wants to buy a 3- or 4-year old patrol car," he said.

Fiscal analyst Casper says selling the cruisers before they depreciate will keep the fleet in the black and provide other cities with top-notch cars. "It creates a win-win situation."

Even Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon hints the county may decide to trash that part of the study.

"We're going to tweak their numbers to a more-localized result," the mayor said.

djensen@sltrib.com

What's Happened

* A Salt Lake County fleet overhaul was announced in May. Some 10 percent of cars were cut, some take-home vehicles were grounded, hybrids were added and some SUVs were swapped for sedans.

* Fleet Manager Nick Morgan was fired in June.

* Fleet was folded into new Administrative Services Department in July.

* Consultants, on Aug. 1, issued the draft of a study that recommends ending part of fleet's rapid-rotation program. County analysts conduct their own study and disagree.

What's Next

* Six full-time fleet positions, plus all temporary positions, will be eliminated later this month.

* A new fleet manager is scheduled to be named soon.

* Announcement is pending from mayor's office on future of fast rotation and the fleet.