Cape Coral, Fla - A Cape Coral city councilman is frustrated that the city was not able to come up with an accurate number of vehicles it owned during a recent audit.

"We didn't know, and still to this day aren't sure how many vehicles we have," said Councilman Bill Deile, who represents Cape Coral's district three.

In attempt to reduce costs, the city's auditor began examining Cape Coral's take home vehicle policy but the audit revealed a much bigger problem: the city did not have an accurate way of keeping track of its on road vehicles.

The city turned over three different reports to the auditor with three different figures.

One from the information technology systems department showed the city with 831 vehicles, while a report from public works reported 595 vehicles, and a third from risk management showed the city insures 920 vehicles.

"There was a 300 vehicle swing between the high and the low number," said Deile, "some vehicles apparently according to the report were sitting awaiting disposal."

Auditors spent three months compiling lists and going to each department to verify how many cars each had.

They found some cars had moved departments or weren't recorded on the list.

After reconciling all three lists, auditors determined the city owned exactly 845 vehicles including 15 the city had retired but hadn't disposed.

"As the audit staff I'm not worried there are missing vehicles. There may be vehicles the city owns that didn't get on the printed list," said Dona Newman, Cape Coral Auditor..

Both Newman and Deile think the problem could be solved by assigning one department to account for vehicles.

City managers provided this statement: "We think the take-home vehicle audit was an excellent tool to evaluate this program and find areas for improvement. We have addressed the recommendations provided in the audit, and we also are reviewing and modifying our administrative regulation for take-home vehicles. This was a very beneficial process for us."

Monday afternoon, the city provided CALL FOR ACTION with another list of vehicles. A spokeswoman for the city says the city owns 877 vehicles. She says the city knows and always has known how many cars they own. She says the information was just not easily extracted. She also says the city is installing new software to make the data easier to find.