A transportation director for Anderson County, SC said he is proposing to make each individual department in the county pay "rent" on the true cost of vehicles they use rather than owning them outright. The plan would create a way to save upfront for periodic replacement and to cut the fleet’s size, according to a Feb. 1 article in the Anderson Independent-Mail. County transportation division director Holt Hopkins outlined a proposal that would see each department given a separate vehicle budget. Each department would be charged by the day, week or month for vehicle use. Departments that didn’t need full-time use of a vehicle potentially could put the money to other uses or return it to the general fund, he told the county council. Departments no longer would have to worry about keeping "spare" vehicles to guard against budget cutbacks because the rent would be "banked" to enable immediate purchases, he said in the report. Hopkins cited a report that estimates the county has a $10 million backlog in spending on its fleet of 535 vehicles and pieces of heavy equipment, 57 percent of which needed replacement based on age and mileage.