BOSTON -- Team 5 began this project by examining the different policies of take-home cars for city and town employees in random communities.

With the rising costs of gasoline, this is one budget item that many local officials are watching carefully.

We discovered a wide-range of policies. Many are very restrictive and allow only a small handful of officials to take cars home. Some have narrowly defined rules over what vehicles can be used for -- driving to and from the place of employment only -- and who can ride in them -- no non-municipal workers allowed in the vehicles.

A few communities, however, have little to no regulations.

Police departments, in particular, have the widest range of options since vehicles are a major part of their daily routine.

Lawrence's police department is one of these agencies with a generous policy. There are 39 unmarked cars and most of them are taken home by officers. More than half of these officers do not live in Lawrence. Both Police Chief John Romano and Mayor Michael Sullivan defend the practice, saying they want no delay between the time officers are called to a scene and their arrival. As a result, officers are allowed to transport their families in these cars -- even taking them to the scene of a crime if necessary -- use the vehicles as their personal cars as they run errands and even go out to dinner in communities far from Lawrence.

This is a radically different policy from Worcester, Malden, Newton, New Bedford, Brookline, Dedham, Lowell and Quincy police departments, which depend on their on-duty officers in marked and unmarked cars to respond to emergencies. (We picked these cities because they were either similar in size or demographics to Lawrence.)

Those departments allow only a few unmarked cars to be driven home, and even then, the officers are allowed to use them only to drive from the station to their homes.

They, like the Lawrence officers, are on call 24/7, but are not allowed to transport family members or use the vehicles for personal trips.

Quincy's police chief said he does not believe taxpayers should foot the gas bills of officers who are off-duty.

In Lowell, officials told Team 5, the use of take-home cars is a serious issue and needs the same scrutiny as other extras, such as cell phones. In Newton, the take-home policy requires officers who commute more than 15 miles home to reimburse the city for the extra gas.

Lawrence Police Department's gasoline bill for the fiscal year 2006 was sizeable -- more than $212,000, with more than half of it purchased at commercial gas stations where the price is more than 70 cents per gallon higher than the city's Department of Public Utility gas pump, which is centrally located in the small, seven-square-mile city. This suggests many of the cars gassed up outside of Lawrence, although officials could not provide us with the breakdown of that information.

We followed more than two dozen officers over a nearly three-month period. We were careful not to compromise any undercover officers and not reveal the license plates of these unmarked cars.

Sarah Stolper, Producer
Janet Wu, Reporter