It’s tough enough to watch our personal expenses rise with gasoline prices, let alone worrying about its impact on our carrier force. As independent contractors, carriers must bear the brunt of many risks associated with running a business, but ultimately increased distribution costs are going to fall on the newspaper’s shoulders.

At the Carroll County Times, we started to address the gas situation over a year ago. In March 2000, we added a gas allowance to 71 carriers to offset the increase in gasoline prices. With a high turnover in carriers already, we didn’t need gas prices to make matters worse.

Carriers signed a contract addendum for a term of three months, giving them an allowance matching their increased cost of doing business. After finding out their mileage and the amount of the gas increase, we calculated what we thought was a fair reimbursement. A few carriers wanted to negotiate, but some quick computations on a calculator convinced them they were getting a fair deal.

For the past year this gas allowance amendment was re-signed each quarter, with only a few variances until the most recent price hikes in April of this year. We were in the middle of one of our quarterly amendments when word came to me from the loading dock that two of our senior carriers had given notice due to the gas crunch and others were grumbling.

It was apparent that we needed to react to gas price changes quicker than quarterly, and that we needed a credible, independent, and verifiable source with which to gauge market conditions.

AAA of Maryland has a Web site designed specifically for the press, which can be viewed at www.fuelgaugereport.com. This site allows you to look up the average gas prices in your state and metro area as compared to the same day last month and last year. This independent source, which is also accessible to the carriers, was used as an index with which to base the new gas allowance.

This new gas addendum varies every four weeks based upon the AAA index price on pre-determined dates. After discussing the plan with the Publisher, we agreed that gas prices were not going to fall below 2000 price levels, so I let the carriers know that the old quarterly addendum that they had been signing was now a permanent territory allowance.

The result so far, is that even though we have lost carriers for the usual reasons, none have been due to the gas increase. The carriers believe that they can expect to be reimbursed fairly for the foreseeable future. An important element of this trust is that an objective, reputable third-party source is the basis for the adjustments. It is also important that I can reconcile every incremental dollar spent based upon our total mileage and that same third party information.