1. How many take-home vehicles are there, and which employees get use of them?

A: There was almost 1,300, last year there was about 1,100, so that’s a 15% increase.
 
Metro PD employees continue to drive most of them — 1,060, or 82%. They use them 24-7, there are rules around what they can be used for during work hours.
 
The sheriff has 68, water department has 65 vehicles, fire department has 34, park police has 17, and a few other departments have a handful each, Metro records show.
 
With Metro PD having over 2,000 employees, the 1,060 take home vehicles amount to one for every two employees.
 
This represents tens of millions of dollars spent buying the vehicles, and paying for gas, insurance and maintenance.

Besides the initial costs of buying vehicles, which costs tens of millions of dollars across several years — they're not all bought at once — you have annual costs like gas and insurance, costing an estimated $4 million last year, plus auto repairs and maintenance.

 
2. How does this compare to other cities?
 
We looked at Clark County, Nevada, home to Las Vegas. The county government and police department — which is sperate — have a total of 814 take-home vehicles, about 500 fewer than Nashville.
 
Like Metro Nashville PD, the Las Vegas Metro Police Department has the bulk of these 24-hour vehicles —78% or 632 vehicles.
 
The police department is much larger, so it has one take-home vehicle for every 10 employees, as compared to Metro Nashville PD’s almost one car for every two employees.