Nassau County officials announced on Feb. 11 a plan to scale back its aging fleet of passenger cars, consolidate management of county vehicles, inventory them by computer and centralize repairs, according to a Feb. 12 report in the newspaper Newsday. Organizing the county's fleet of cars has been a goal of County Executive Thomas Suozzi since he took office in 2002 and found vehicles were allocated hodgepodge to departments across county government. Nassau officials acknowledge they still don't have a complete accounting of all the cars the county owns or leases, or how they are used. Suozzi said 75 percent of county passenger cars are beyond their useful life cycle and half are more than 5 years too old. Cars are repaired in 21 different maintenance facilities with little communication about available parts. Since 2001, the county has cut the number of passenger cars from 1,714 to 1,454. Suozzi said he plans to eliminate 250 more to bring the fleet to 1,200. Suozzi said cars are to be removed from the control of individual departments and consolidated under the new Office of Fleet Management. That department is headed by Richard Winter, whom Nassau hired three months ago after he managed the car fleet for the New York City Police Department.