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Sheriff’s office to move abandoned-vehicle handling to public auction, begin storing at SAR July 1
Summary
To reduce storage costs and improve recoveries, the sheriff’s office told commissioners it will start using public vehicle auctions, raise the amount charged to tow operators for abandoned vehicles, and move storage to SAR beginning July 1.
The Albany County sheriff’s office told commissioners it will change how abandoned motor vehicles are handled starting July 1 to reduce county costs and discourage informal resale arrangements.
The sheriff’s office representative said the county will move to public auctions for abandoned vehicles and shift storage to the county’s SAR facility, which the office said will lower per-vehicle storage costs. "We're going to flip that around, and we'll start storing them at SAR, which cuts, like, almost $700 off of the storage cost," the sheriff’s office representative said.
The office also said it will increase the price at which it sells vehicles back to tow-truck operators (the transcript shows a proposed increase from $30 to $100) and pursue public-auction sales to reach fair-market outcomes rather than returning vehicles to local tow operators who later resell them privately. The sheriff’s office said municipalities that generate the majority of abandoned-vehicle tows will be asked to adjust their towing practices because the county believes many municipal tows are being executed under local codes rather than the state statute that governs abandoned-vehicle handling.
Sheriff’s staff described legal and operational steps they are taking: changing storage location, using public auction formats (with statutory advertisement and reporting), and asking the county attorney’s office to evaluate whether costs can be charged to other entities that frequently generate abandoned-vehicle tows. "We have the county attorney's office looking into deferring some of those costs to some of the entities that create more of the costs...the city accounts for about 85% of our tows," the sheriff’s office representative said.
Commissioners asked operational questions about capacity and timing; the sheriff’s office said SAR has room but warned the program will need regular auctions and better administrative accounting for sales tax on nonvehicle surplus items. The office proposed starting the public-auction process July 1 and said staff will work to ensure required advertisement and reporting for auctions and surplus sales are met.
