More troopers a waste

Ladies and gentlemen, today we offer an example of government waste, Kulongoski fiscal irresponsibility, power politics, public apathy and media laziness. It’s quite the combination.

But first, a warning: the writer of this blog is snarling and biased, in need of a shower and second cup of strong black coffee, listening to hounds outside barking over crescendoes of Pink Floyd at deer far too close to the electric fence, and some time today wants to fire up 427 cubic inches of aluminum block V8 and run enough NOISE through the straight pipes to put ripples in the Pacific or shake a small slide of rock down the snowy side of Mt. Jefferson outside the door. Okay? Are we on the same page?

In today’s Oregonian (read it here), reporter Elizabeth Suh wrote that “In Gov. Ted Kulongoski's proposed budget, he recommends funding 139 more patrol troopers so that the state police can return to patrolling the entire state 24 hours a day. The Legislature's budget proposes funding 100 more patrols.”

We can’t find in Suh’s lazy little article how much this will cost, what the current staffing is, or any other meaningful information.

Instead, she mindlessly quotes the OSP, which spoon feeds her factoids: “In October, state police officials issued a report comparing patrol trooper levels nationwide. They found that with 254 patrol troopers, Oregon had the lowest staffing level in the country: about seven per 100,000 population.”

This would be sloppy journalism if it were journalism, but it doesn’t qualify.

So, let’s grab a shovel and do just a rough excavation, because this is a blog, not an article in the state’s major daily. Live with it.

The OSP claims on its web site it has 322 sworn patrol officers, 38 professional positions, for a total of 360. For the 2005-2007 biennium, patrol funds are $84,726,605 out of a total budget of $519,128,681, though the OSP reports that of that half-billion, $193,099,576 are Federal “pass-through” funds and do not support OSP programs.

So, if Kulongoski adds about 30 percent more patrol troopers, what will it cost? Let’s take the easy way out and just add 30% to the existing patrol budget. This will probably overstate the actual amount, since newly added troopers will not make (yet) as much as retiring troopers, and different shifts might use the same car. And let’s pick a number, say 85%, and say that labor is 85% of the cost of the patrol program.

So, if we currently spend $84,726,605 per biennium on patrol troopers, and 85% of that is for labor, we spend $72,017,614. If we increase that by about a third, we get $95,783,426. so we will spend about $23,765,812 more for the new patrols.

Another way to do the math is to divide the patrol budget of $84,726,605 by the number of personnel, 360. That gives us an eye-opener: $235,351 per person. WOW!

And if we again multiply that by the troopers added (let’s use 120), and mix in our 85% payroll modifier, we get $24,005,871.

Close enough. Now to the next question. What are we going to get for our fresh $24 million?

We assert the following: Nothing. Oregonians will not benefit from this expenditure. There is no hard evidence anywhere that we have been able to find, that putting one more OSP trooper on the road, let alone somewhere between 100 and 139 of them, will improve public safety.

The evidence, though awkward, is to the contrary: At the same time the number of troopers per “mile driven” has gone down, the number of accidents per mile driven also decreased. So one could argue, (we won’t) that reducing the number of troopers reduces the number of accidents. OSP has used that kind of false logic in promoting their expansion.

We wish reporter Suh had asked the OSP when they gave her that stupid report about having the lowest staffing in the country whether we had also had the lowest safety in the country. But she didn’t.

Which leads to the final issue: Where else could we spend that $24 million that would do some good? Well, the Sisters School District could use some money. A half-million would make a pretty good addition to teaching staff, and Sisters is better off than John Day or Burns or the Wallowas.

Central Oregon is going to be out of jail space soon. Gresham could use some help attracting investment to their high tech business parks. Mill City could use some help that would create a job or two. I bet Lakeview would be better able to use a couple of deputies. We need technology to get some of the slash burned along the highway east of Mt. Jefferson turned into diesel fuel. More importantly, that is at $24 million more every two years, so over 10 years, we are talking about $100 million more just for the increase proposed today.

For that, we are going to get 120 men and women in funny hats and fast cars pointing laser guns paid for by insurance companies at the license plates of citizens trying to get somewhere safely but over the speed limit.

What a waste. A waste of reporting, of government, of time, of money.

Time for coffee.