Inaccuracies in bookkeeping led to the temporary shutdown of CARPOOL, officials with CARPOOL said in a press
release.
“Our checks and balances process for rental car invoices contributed to inaccuracies in record keeping,” CARPOOL officials said in the press release. “This caused a gap in payment to Enterprise [the rental car company].”
The difference has been paid, said CARPOOL chairwoman Rebecca Cain, a senior agribusiness major. The organization plans to create a system that tracks all rental car invoices to ensure a discrepancy does not happen again.
Cain said the organization’s expenses roughly average $2,500 per week, and that figure is with a smaller fleet of automobiles.”This past semester, we greatly reduced the amount of cars,” Cain said. “It really varies every night [how many cars we run]. The most we ran last semester was around 20 cars for Halloween weekend. Next semester, we’re looking to run about 12 cars per night.”
CARPOOL officials plan to raise enough funds to begin operations within the next two weeks. Rather than focusing on a quick jump-start, CARPOOL has a greater desire to secure the longevity of the organization.
“We won’t start operating with $2,500,” Cain said, “We haven’t solidified a number, but we want to have enough to fund the majority of this semester. Once we start running, it will be for the rest of the semester.”
CARPOOL, a Texas A&M supported organization, has been in operation since September of 1999. CARPOOL’s self-proclaimed mission is to “facilitate a safe and reliable commuting environment in the Bryan-College Station area by providing … rides to intoxicated patrons or patrons rendered incapable of transportation due to other circumstances.”
The number of rides taken by students ascended from 138 the first weekend of operation to an average of about 650 per weekend.