I’ve been sitting in on the Warren County Finance/Audit Committee meetings since May of this year. I’ve been noticing a few things, writing notes, and just observing. I decided to go ahead and start digging into something that was bugging me. The fuel reports every month had a column that reported 0 MPG for many transactions.

It started with trying to copy & paste the data from a PDF into a spreadsheet. It was pretty bad. I then moved into copy & paste into a text file, and then programmatically read through it via JavaScript, convert it to a CSV file, and then import it to a spreadsheet.

The process took quite a bit of time, but eventually I had it down. I was able to start creating a ton of different graphs and lists as I evaluated the 0 MPG reasoning. There seemed to be a few reasons for the calculation being zero – but I started noticing other things as I worked with the data. I created many different types of checks that highlighted problems.

I even started looking at the VIN for each vehicle and found issues with the length and characters used for the check-digit. As I was trying to decode the VIN myself, I then found that NHTSA had a page that I could enter a VIN and it would display information about it. After that, I found they also provided an API that could provide XML, CSV, or JSON for up to 50 VIN. I brought that into my reports and found that the vehicle year, make, and model in the vehicle description did not match the decoded information. I also found fuel types that the VIN indicated, but did not match what the vehicle was fueled with – ie Diesel vs Unleaded.

I was ready for more data. I started looking at another monthly report, and found that the formatting had changed compared to the prior report. I would have to write a new script to decode it. Even worse, data was broken apart into lines far apart from each other, and other parts of data were strung together as one big number. It was a nightmare to hash out. I tried at it for a bit, but got frustrated. The question became – what is my time worth?

So from that point, I entered a FOIA request to acquire a machine readable format of the data. I’ve not done it via the county before. I’ve heard rumors that they are very expensive, starting at $100 in their FOIA requests. My hope was that since I was requesting data that was already published publicly, I wouldn’t have to bother with attorney fees to review the data. However, I was also concerned that they may state that they don’t have to create documents in order to fulfill my request, so I had to consider how to phrase it that I was mainly after machine-readable data that is in their system.

They use a platform called NextRequest. I walked through each step, and asked for an itemized list of the data for the year 2025 up to current date, and to request permission to proceed if the fees are above $50.

One thing of note, is that my request was made Friday evening, and Monday was a holiday (Columbus Day / Indigenous Peoples Day). On Tuesday, October 14, 2025 9:18 AM, they assigned the request to Finance & Purchasing. That evening, they replied with an estimate.

I hadn’t noticed the email regarding the cost estimate until the next evening. I agreed and asked how to pay. They said it wasn’t due until work was done. From there, I wasn’t sure if I was expected to send a message before they proceeded, so I tried to cover all bases by telling them to proceed and stop if the process goes beyond the estimate. My fear was that they could run amuck with the costs if I didn’t put a stop measure in place. 23 minutes later, they were ready for payment, and only charged $14.21 for 20 minutes.

With everything being online, I was surprised there wasn’t a way to pay online. I headed down to the treasurers office immediately and paid in person. I then dropped a receipt off at the county administrators office as the person I needed to see was on a lunch break. With everything else going on, by time I got home, I had access to the file and downloaded it.

Oct 10, 2025 7:35 PM – 🧔‍♂️ Initial FOIA Request (Request 25-849)

Dear FOIA Officer,

Pursuant to the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (§2.2-3700 et seq.), I respectfully request access to existing public records related to fuel transactions used in preparing the monthly Fuel Reports reviewed by the Finance/Audit Committee and published in the Board of Supervisors’ board packets.

I am not requesting the creation of a new record. Rather, I request access to the existing electronic data file(s) that are used internally to generate those monthly PDF reports. This data clearly exists in a machine-readable system prior to formatting into the PDF documents.

If this dataset is maintained electronically (for example, in a database, spreadsheet, or fleet-management system), I request a copy in any of the formats already used by Warren County in the normal course of business — such as Excel (.xlsx), CSV, or XML.

The fields of interest include:

• Vehicle ID
• Vehicle Description – Year, Make, Model
• VIN
• Tag
• Odometer
• MPG
• Product (Unleaded, Diesel, Premium, Mid-Grade)
• Quantity (Gallons)
• Merchant Address
• Date
• Time
• Agency ID
• Agency Name
• Card
• Price Per Unit (PPU)
• Transaction Number
• Original Cost
• OPIS
• Federal Subtract
• State Tax Subtract
• Cost
• Invoice Number
• Invoice Date

If other related fields are present (for example, adjustments or additional deductions that explain discrepancies between OPIS/Federal/State values and the final Cost), please include those as well.

If available, I would also like to see the merchant name associated with each transaction.

I request data covering the period January 1, 2025, through the current date.

In accordance with §2.2-3704(F) of the Code of Virginia, please provide a written itemized estimate of any potential costs associated with fulfilling this request before processing begins. I would like to review the estimate and confirm whether to proceed if costs are expected to exceed $50.

Electronic delivery via email or a secure download link is preferred.

Thank you for your time and assistance in making this data accessible in a usable format.

Respectfully,

Lewis Edward Moten III

Oct 10, 2025 7:35 PM – 🏛️ Reasonable Charges

Please be advised that pursuant to Va. Code Section §2.2-3704(F), the County is allowed to make reasonable charges in response to requests made through the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. The charges will not exceed the actual cost incurred to access, duplicate, supply, or search for the requested records, and the County will make all reasonable efforts to supply the requested records at the lowest possible cost to you.

Oct 14, 2025 4:04 PM – 🏛️ Cost Estimate $42.63

You have been notified of a cost estimate regarding your request for records. If you would like to proceed with your request, confirmation of this estimate is required. Please be advised that these records are available on the County website free of charge in PDF form. Below is a breakdown for the estimate of time needed to respond to this request:

S. Reed – 1.0 hour @ $42.63 per hour

TOTAL: $42.63

Oct 15, 2025 8:12 PM – 🧔‍♂️ Agree to pay, how?

I agree to pay $42.63 to receive the data in a machine-readable form. How do I pay?

Oct 16, 2025 8:59 AM – 🏛️ Payment not due yet

Payment will not be due until the request is complete and we send you the final invoice.

Oct 16, 2025 11:17 AM – 🧔‍♂️ Proceed with stopgap

Thank you. Please proceed. If something comes up while processing the request that would increase the estimated amount, please contact me before continuing along with the new itemized estimate.

Oct 16, 2025 11:40 AM – 🏛️ Ready for payment

The records requested are being provided in full. An invoice for this request will be sent separately.

Oct 16, 2025 11:40 AM – 🏛️ Document released

Manfield report.xlsx

Oct 16, 2025 11:40 AM – 🏛️ Invoice $14.21

Please remit payment to the County Administration Office at 220 N. Commerce Ave., Ste. 100, Front Royal, VA 22630 to the attention of “FOIA Officer”. Should the payment type be a check, please make it payable to “Warren County Treasurer”. Below is a breakdown of the staff time expended to complete this request:

Staff hours

Name	Cost per hour	Quantity	Total cost
Deputy Finance Director	$42.63	0 hours 20 minutes	$14.21

Subtotal			$14.21
			Total: $14.21

Download PDF

Oct 16, 2025 11:40 AM – 🏛️ Request Closed

Closed

Oct 16, 2025 4:10 PM – 🏛️ Invoice Paid

$14.21 paid offline

I worked on creating a new report over the next five days. Mind you, I’m doing everything else in life such as the Warren County Sheriff’s Office Citizens Academy, Getting my hillbilly degree in Manassas, Hosting a Lego Users Group Meeting, Greater Glory Board Game Expo, Church, Kena Klowns Krab Feast, getting certified in tickling rats, preparing art for an exhibit, painting an Empty Soup Bowl, and on, and on.

So, eventually – early this morning, I’m done. I’ve been up all night, after 5 AM, I send out an initial email with my findings as a PDF report. I head to bed, wake up, start answering questions, and send the report out to more people. Eventually all supervisors, administrator, finance administrator, treasurer, and commissioner of revenue receive the report.

Throughout the day, I’m talking with a couple supervisors via email about the findings, and things I’d like to see – mainly that the tabled data should be available to the Finance/Audit committee in a machine readable form such as a spreadsheet rather than a PDF, and that there may be a way to modernize things. I also got an invitation to consider joining the Finance/Audit committee when a spot becomes available. I had to remind them that I was already asked previously to consider it from a past supervisor, but that there was a conflict of interest due to one of the non-profit boards that I sit on, and its relationship with the county.

Then comes the Board of Supervisors meeting at 7 PM. I only briefly mention the Fuel reports. The majority of my time was spent talking about the condition of the senior center, and the vulnerability of our seniors. I had a bit of a brain blank, so I concluded with that. Then came the approval of accounts. A few of the supervisors brought up my findings, and one was concerned that maybe they shouldn’t approve the monthly fuel report individual, but approve the rest. He also brought up making the fuel data available as a spreadsheet rather than a PDF. The finance administrator came up and spoke that she had sent my findings over to staff to review.

In the end, all reports of accounts were approved. However, it’s now out in the open that an issue exists, and that they are addressing it. It was fairly interesting seeing something I had put together being addressed in public, and action being taken. The last report that I had sent to them regarding library bibliostats did not get any traction or pushback from the board at all – although a few of the speakers during the public hearing had mentioned and praised it.

Here is the report that I had sent out.

Email to Supervisors & others

Hello.

I’ve compiled some of the fuel report discrepancies for 2025 into a report. Some issues found include:

• VIN numbers less than 17 characters
• Invalid VIN along with validation errors (Incomplete VIN, wrong check-digit, unrecognized manufacturer with NHTSA, invalid characters, etc)
• Duplicate VIN assigned to different vehicle ID’s, license plates, and vehicle descriptions
• Duplicate License plate assigned to two different vehicles, tags, and vehicle descriptions
• Duplicate Vehicle ID’s with different vehicle descriptions, VIN, License Plates
• Vehicles with missing VIN numbers
• Mismatched year/make/model in vehicle description when decoding VIN
• Vehicles fueling with both diesel and unleaded
• Vehicles fueling with gasoline incompatible with the VIN encoded fuel type
• The same vehicles fueling up to three times in quick succession
• The same card fueling different & same vehicles in quick succession
• Vehicles returning to the pump in less than 5 miles from the prior fueling transaction
• Cost to county is sometimes higher than the original price
• Missing odometer readings
• Odometer Rollbacks which may indicate a different vehicle was fueled
• Odometer readings at exactly 100, 1000, 10000 that are not close to the prior/future readings appear to be entered to force a fuel transaction log without verifying the odometer.
• Vehicles that never change their odometer with each fuel transaction
• Large number of transactions reported as 0 MPG, with an increasing frequency over time
• Calculated fuel efficiency above 1,000,000 MPG
• 265 transactions with a fuel efficiency above 100 MPG based on current, prior odometer, and gallons fueled.
• Abnormal price difference between OPIS and PPU.
• Potentially missing deductions in reports when attempting to consolidate original price with federal/state tax subtraction and cost.
• A few vehicles have not fueled since July 1
• A few vehicles have high mileage above 150,000
• A few vehicles have low mileage below 1,000
• Odometer trends for various vehicles demonstrate a pattern of rollbacks, and may indicate a different vehicle was fueled, or that the odometer reading was inaccurate/forced. A few also demonstrate a possible maintenance period in which the vehicle was not fueling for a considerable amount of time.
• Out of state vehicle fuelings in Indianapolis, South Carolina, North Carolina, Ohio, and West Virginia.