CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- City take-home vehicles are cars and trucks that tax money pays for every day, and that hundreds of city employees leave in their driveways every night.

But who drives them and how much is it costing taxpayers?

For answers, Eyewitness News went to Chuck Robinson, who heads Charlotte's Business Support Services unit, which includes its fleet of cars.

“It's actually not intended to be a perk at all. It's all about service delivery,” Robinson said.

“Let’s face it. People look at take-home cars and think they're a perk,” said reporter Jim Bradley.

“Right,” Robinson said.

“Whether you think so or not,” Bradley said.

“Right. Exactly,” Robinson said.

But Robinson said every one of the city's 519 take-home vehicles is either assigned to someone who goes directly from home to a jobsite or is on-call 24 hours a day.

Don Robinson is one of them. He works clearing all kinds of debris off of roadways and said without his take-home truck residents would all be in more danger.

“The big thing is we'd have to come back into the office and get a vehicle to respond,” he said. “If you have something in the roadway, it needs to be removed immediately and any delay is one more chance for somebody to have an accident.”

The value to taxpayers for Robinson's take-home truck seems clear, but some job titles raise questions.

Nearly all of the fire department's 37 cars are loaded with special equipment and assigned to those called out at all hours. But also on the list is the Chevy Impala taken home every night by the communications supervisor.

The city's job description calls it an administrative and professional position. Deputy Chief Rich Granger said that's deceiving and he insists that supervisor needs emergency lights on a city car to get in quickly any time storms or emergencies overwhelm fire dispatchers.

“I think people understand that. But why do you need a take home car seven days a week to come in once or twice a month? Because nobody could tell us when something like that might happen,” Granger said.

It's more than emergencies that drive the decisions on take-home cars. Many city housing and utility inspectors take vehicles home and go directly to work sites in the morning, saving time and building in efficiency.

Chuck Robinson also said those workers pay the city a commuter fee of 19 cents a mile for using the vehicle. But the workers still appear to be getting a deal – they aren’t paying for the gas, the insurance of the maintenance on the vehicle.

“It is a pretty good deal, but it's not a great deal at 2 o’clock in the morning and you're being called out to a lift station or a fire scene or something like that,” Robinson said.

There are several departments that have been proactive and reduced the number of take-home vehicles. For example, Neighborhood Development has cut 13 cars and Solid Waste another 10.

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, which has 370 cars, is also implementing changes. It’s not cutting the number of take-home cars, but instead changing who gets them.

Police Chief Rodney Monroe said employees who aren't regularly called in off-duty may soon lose their cars.

“We're going through a process of looking at those vehicles to see which ones of those vehicles can come back into the fleet,” he said.

Those cars would be repainted and given to patrol officers to take home to improve police visibility.

The chief said he has a committee working on compiling a listing of possible changes to the take-home policy. He said he's hoping to make some recommendations on that in 30 to 45 days.

Robinson said in a tight economy, everyone's take-home car is under a microscope. But he said overall, the cars save the city money.