SACRAMENTO – Many California state employees are refusing to use their personal vehicles for work-related trips and are renting cars instead to protest state mileage rates that they feel are too low, according to the Monterey Herald. Employees feel that the states 34-cent per mile reimbursement rate is unfair because of the soaring cost of gas and because it is well below the IRS-approved rate of 44.5 cents a mile. As a result, many state workers are exercising their right to request either a state fleet vehicle or a rental. The mileage rate backlash is causing rising costs in several departments and hurting productivity, according to the Herald report. Several of those same departments have made a request to the Department of Personnel Administration to raise the state’s mileage rate so that it matches the IRS-approved rate, but those requests have so far been rejected.