Democrats in Oregon want to waste hundreds of millions of dollars on the Oregon State Police. And they want make the funding an entitlement, so if money needs to be saved in the future, OSP will not have to share.
The budget is scheduled for a work session on Monday, May 14 at 3:00 pm at the Oregon State Capitol.
Folks, the OSP gets hundreds of millions of dollars a year. How many more highway patrols to you want? What about schools? What about roads? What about investment? What in the hell are you getting for your money?
Will someone please give us some facts here?
Let's talk first about response times and support for other police: Response times have been improved by the increase in the number of cell phones far more than the number of troopers.
Then we need to ask, what is the cost per officer of an OSP Trooper versus a Clackamas County Sheriff if each is a five-year veteran? What is the "efficiency" of those officers, that is, what is the "Total cost per trooper" versus the "total cost per deputy?" or better yet, "total cost per trooper per mile on the road" versus "total cost per deputy per mile on the road?"
Is it possible we might get three deputies for the cost of two troopers? What does that mean for response times?
Let's move on to support for other agencies: do OSP and Clackamas County work as well together as Clackamas and Multnomah Counties on a true mutual aid call? Ask a couple of deputies, and promise them absolute anonymity. Ask them how they like working with the other sheriff's office, and ask them about working with OSP. There are culture differences between all of them: Bernie's agency may be hard to work with, etc. But it's a good question to put out there.
It has been said that a proposed 139 additional troopers alone will cost $17.6 million of new money initially, growing larger every two years, at least $80 million of new money in the next decade for just the increase. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO GET FOR THAT MONEY? You will not get $80 million of lives saved, or $80 million of meth busts, or $80 million of anything that has a positive impact on the lives of Oregonians.
The emphasis so far has been on 24 hour patrols, and more cops on the road. On that subject, see if you can find any statistics, anywhere, that shows that issuing tickets causes a population to drive more slowly, or saves any lives.
OSP sells budget increases with a misuse of numbers: In an accident, force at impact increases by the square of speed increase, (true) therefore, issuing tickets saves lives (false). Invalid because (1) Few accidents are caused by speed in a way that more troopers would prevent; (2) We don't really want traffic to move more slowly, we want it to move more safely, and they are not the same; (3) Things that are true in the singular (one driver) often fail in the aggregate (traffic safety).
Over the same period the number of troopers has been going down, the number of fatal accidents per mile driven has been going down. Ask again: What are we getting for our $17.6 million of new money that will directly benefit Oregonians?
We could put that money into schools, teaching boys and girls how to pound nails, how to weld, how to earn a living; We could create a state service program for all 18 years olds; We could put that money into a bypass around Sisters, Oregon; We could put that money into investments in alternative energy, growing soybeans for diesel fuel, turning logging slash or underbrush clearing into ethanol; We could attract a business with jobs to Newport or Coos Bay; We could improve a bridge. Widen a road. Reform K-8 education by teaching parents how to parent.
There is so much to do with that money, my god don’t throw it away on the OSP.
Time is short. Write your legislator. Find the address on the right side of this article.
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5 comments:
Your Post betrays an urban point of view, most of this state's geography has nothing to do with your viewpoint and the road systems and policing of them is another thing entirely. There are quite good reasons for increasing OSP's budget, look a little farther.
You say "There are quite good reasons for increasing OSP's budget," yet offer not one.
Nor do you provide any response to the questions we asked, the numbers we put up, the alternatives we suggest.
Not one fact, not one shift, not one location, not one cost, not one comparison. Not one.
"We want it, we need it" does not make much of a debate.
I can't give you the numbers, but there have been numerous news reports on this over the past year or so.
In the more rural areas, stretches of highways/freeways outside the metro area, etc., there are very few people to patrol these roads other than the OSP. Often times, that's all there is.
And thanks to cuts, huge areas have only one OSP officer assigned to them. So when there's a vehicle accident, the response time is much, much longer than it ever should have been.
Cell phones don't mean anything when you're out in the middle of nowhere if the nearest officer is 2 hours away. Or there isn't one, since only one officer is assigned to that area, and he can't possibly work 24/7. So you have to wait for an officer to be called from off duty, to come from a little town hours away, etc.
This isn't really an issue so much in the Portland metro area, since we're urban enough to have fairly good coverage (with some exceptions, but that's mostly a sheriffs office problem).
This is about those areas along highways like 26 and 101 that don't have the benefit of a major metro police force, sheriff dept., etc.
The Oregon House Republicans put out a sheet recently on some instances of poor response time and such because of the cuts in the OSP. Of course what they don't tell you is that they were the ones who cut OSP and refused to work on compromises that would have stopped, or lessened, that from happening.
If you drive between Lakeview and Klamath Falls, there's some lonely highway. That's always been true.
Let's agree, for discussion, there is a problem. The first step is to define it: Let's say we want a response time of no more than 45 minutes on any highway in the state (or one hour, or two hours).
Is OSP the best solution for Highway 20 east of Bend, or should we beef up Deschutes County Sheriff's patrols? Is OSP the answer for the state-wide problem, or is providing state patrol assistance for local law enforcement?
News reports, especially those provided by Associated Press (AP), are bits of propaganda spoon fed by OSP to lazy reporters.
A comparison analysis of the OSP budget may show we are not getting much bang for our buck, as it were. You know that's true when you see a cluster of five or so troopers standing together on I5 with Lasers targeting commuters between Salem and Portland. They look like hunters in doe season.
Someone in state government or the university system should study the cost effectiveness of OSP. Hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake.
Eye:
Thanks for making a point few others will bother examining. Mindless expansion of the OSP at the state level is about as illogical as the rampant traditional military spending to take on "terrorism" at the Federal level.
Emotively, sounds great. And Dems are always insecure with voters around "law and order" issues, so will be naturally inclined to push for this, to take away some Republican opponent's talking points.
I agree with you - cost effectiveness ought to be an essential part of this equation. Our public monies are just too scarce to allow for blind support to expand expenditures of this sort.
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