Audit Hits Glut of Ga. Patrol Posts

The Georgia State Patrol has too many posts scattered across the state, troopers behind desks who could be behind the wheel, and fewer troopers on the road at the times and places they're needed most, a new state audit concludes.

The state patrol challenged many of the audit's conclusions, saying they came from "hardworking analysts who have no professional expertise in law enforcement."

In the 62-page report, the Department of Audits and Accounts said the state could save more than $1 million a year by cutting the patrol's 48 posts in half. That would eliminate administrative jobs and enable the patrol to put more than 100 extra troopers on the road, the audit said.

Other key findings of the audit, which was released last week:

Most troopers work on Monday through Thursday from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. Staffing drops significantly after 8 p.m. and on weekends.

Nationwide, about three-quarters of fatal DUI accidents occur at night and 58 percent on the weekend.

Most state patrol road checks occur between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., with the checks rapidly declining after that.

Accidents are most prevalent between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m., but the portion of troopers on patrol duty decreases at that time. The state's patrol's staffing is at its highest level during the morning and early afternoon hours.

The patrol has virtually no presence on the road between midnight and 5 a.m.

Patrol officials say the audit caused them to take another look at staffing.

However, they said limited state funding has left them unable to staff a 24 hour-a-day patrol operation. Some urban and suburban areas, where the volume of traffic and accidents is higher, have more local law enforcement to police the roads, they added.

'A lot of political will'

Cutting the number of trooper posts around the state wouldn't save all the money that auditors think it would, patrol leaders said.

"It is a physical location," said Col. Mark McDonough, commissioner of the Department of Public Safety. "It's the difference between a mailman and the post office. They are talking about closing down post offices, but the mail still has to be delivered."

State auditors acknowledge that closing trooper posts would be so politically difficult that they recommended the creation of an independent commission --- similar to the federal military base closing commission --- to decide which posts would close.

"It would take a lot of political will," said Leslie McGuire, head of the Department of Audits and Accounts' performance audit division.

The state patrol, like all parts of state government, has endured budget cuts in recent years because tax revenues declined during the Great Recession. The patrol's budget was $86.7 million last year, about 70 percent of which came from the state treasury. The state patrol has cut radio dispatch jobs and had to move some troopers off their regular duties to fill holes in recent years.

Closing trooper posts would be one way to save money, auditors said. The number of posts expanded over the years as more counties agreed to build facilities if the state patrol agreed to staff them.

Rep. Alan Powell, R-Hartwell, a member of the House subcommittee that handles the state patrol's budget, said the scattering of posts made some sense because Georgia is such a large state.

But he also said communities saw it as a coup to have a trooper post.

"It's a prime value for a community to have a post because you've got law enforcement right there," Powell said.

McGuire said, "Because of politics, they wanted the state patrol there. What you have are these 48 posts and the staff to go with it without a lot of consideration of where resources necessarily need to go."

'Mayberry attachment'

Almost all of the posts are outside of metro Atlanta. Each has a separate command structure, auditors said, and the state patrol employs one supervisor for every two to three "subordinate troopers."

A 2005 management study by the Department of Public Safety recommended a reduction in the number of posts. Auditors said cutting the number of posts in half would save $1.25 million and at the same time make 107 more troopers available for patrol.

McDonough said those figures are unrealistic. The patrol would still have to use the communications equipment at the posts, so they would still have to maintain the facilities, he said. And he disputed the auditor's conclusion that eliminating the posts would increase the number of troopers available for highway patrol.

Laying off the secretaries at those posts would eliminate the local connection to the community, he said.

"That is one of the most important things we have is that connection to the community. We do not want to lose that Mayberry attachment to the people we serve," McDonough said.

In terms of post supervision, he said supervisors are not only watching over the troopers on the road but also doing managerial work for all of the shifts, such as scheduling.

In such tough financial times, auditors said the patrol should make better use of traffic, accident and violations data to determine staffing needs and which troopers and posts are doing an effective job.

The staffing puzzle

Officials say it's impossible to predict when and where crashes will occur. And putting troopers on later shifts might cause other problems.

"With current staffing levels, increasing the number of troopers on the midnight shift would seriously deplete manpower available on other shifts, without a corresponding impact on traffic safety," officials said in their response to the audit.

McDonough said he would need 86 more troopers to be able to have the state's roads patrolled by the GSP 24-hours-a-day, seven days a week.

He said in places like Atlanta and Athens, troopers work traffic accidents to help local law enforcement officials. The heaviest traffic is weekdays during rush hours, so that's when troopers are on duty.

"Our agency is a support agency; it's not a state police organization," he said.

The audit likewise said some traffic- and accident-heavy counties such as Cherokee, Gwinnett and Henry County get limited help from the state patrol, which does investigate most accidents in rural counties.

Powell, who has represented a rural North Georgia district for 20 years, said small-town law enforcement need the help.

"You don't want a local law enforcement agency investigating a serious accident," Powell said. "You want an independent, professional state patrol team to investigate accidents, especially serious accidents, because local politics can come into play in adjudicating who is at fault."

'Not producing widgets'

The state patrol said the highest-traffic areas are in metro regions that field large forces of local police, and some local agencies may not want the patrol's help.

In general, patrol officials said in the audit, "the application of the law between the trooper and the citizen should not be driven by a numerical analysis with an emphasis on revenue generations."

Almost all of the ticket revenue for citations troopers write goes to local governments, not the state. McDonough said he doesn't want a quota system to judge the performance of troopers.

"We're not producing widgets," he said. "The last thing we should ever do is, in order to get a particular type of performance rating, you have to write 100 tickets."

McGuire from the state auditors office said her staffers are not asking the state patrol to set quotas for tickets or accidents handled.

"What we're really asking them to do is direct activities of those troopers in a way that is in line with their mission and objective," she said.

"They seem to not be using data available to them that would indicate where the highest incidents of violations or traffic accidents or highest miles traveled are as the basis for where they are putting people or where the posts are located. There is a disconnect there."

Georgia State Patrol stats

The Georgia State Patrol received a stinging audit that says the patrol is wasting millions and mismanaging operations, from the number of posts it runs to the number of troopers it puts on the road, where it deploys them, and at what times of day.

2008 2009 2010

Total accidents worked 40,407 43,140 47,043

Fatal accidents 822 672 708

Total vehicle stops 473,345 462,918 439,555

Citations and arrests 342,136 319,938 304,308

Impaired driving arrests 11,646 12,412 13,935

Warnings 323,829 323,351 366,057

Source: Georgia Department of Audits, citing Georgia State Patrol data.

Types of citations issued in 2010

Speeding 43%

Seat belt/child restraint 17%

Other moving hazardous 13%