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I read in the paper that Schenectady might close the body shop in the municipal garage, which repairs damage to city owned vehicles. This supposedly results from an insurance change, providing a very high deductible on collision coverage to city vehicles, which in turn is a result of numerous at-fault accidents related to persistent poor driving by operators of those vehicles.
Currently the operation of the shop is paid for by settlements from the insurance carrier for the vehicles, and the high deductible will eliminate most of those payments, as the city essentially self insures for most mishaps. No settlement money to pay for the body shop results in closing the shop. It all sounds logical if you don't think about it.
The problem is, that now the city will have to pay for repairs itself. And presumably the body shop has been doing repairs for less than the independent repair shops, so why does it make sense to pay those same outside shops to fix damage when you pay for it yourself instead of using an insurance settlement? Has someone forgotten "a penny saved is a penny earned?" Unless the city plans to leave the damage unfixed and have the city workers going about in unsafe junkers until they are sold by the pound as scrap instead of as used cars, someone has to fix them! And if internal repairs are more cost effective, then how does it make sense to spend more elsewhere, and give up the control over the quality and scheduling that doing repairs yourself brings?
I'd like to think common sense will prevail, the city paid to set up the shop, to the extent that numbers are available to the public it looks as if it saves money, and the only reason to shut down the body shop would be because the city vehicles were having fewer accidents. I'd rather see that demonstrated by results than assumed as a given because it sounds good to say "retrain drivers to have fewer accidents." I'm a skeptic, and once the body shop is closed, even if it will save money the cost of restarting may negate the savings and force the city to use more expensive commercial repair services. Leave it open for six months after the proposed retraining takes place, then decide the best course. As a taxpayer I love to see my money spent wisely, but control over the entire repair process has value, too. The city should quantify the results of driver training (why didn't they do training originally?) before declaring success and deciding that the municipal body shop is no longer needed.
