Published on Thursday, May 4, 2006
in the Lakeland Ledger

Friends In Low Places

Pity the put-upon Florida highway patrolmen. Making the state's highways a bit safer is a thankless job. There are far fewer troopers than the state needs. This week, the Legislature gave the 1,700 troopers another slap in the face: The state's correctional officers received the $9.3 million they had requested for pay raises, but FHP troopers, along with wildlife officers and others in statewide law-enforcement agencies, received nothing.

Other FHP requests have met a similar fate this session.

The FHP had asked for 74 additional troopers -- 50 for state roads and 24 more for the Florida Turnpike System. When legislators balked at that, Rep. Bob Allen, R-Merritt Island, organized an effort to add just 50 troopers. That, too, failed to go anywhere.

The FHP did gain $4 million for overtime pay, but it's a small amount for needs so great.

For instance, the number of registered motor vehicles has increased just more than 50 percent in the past 13 years. Visitors to Florida increased about 80 percent over the same period. Yet the patrol has only 10 percent more troopers than it did in 1993.

"It's unfair for us to charge the FHP with ensuring safety and not giving them the full team," Rep. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla, told the Fort Myers News-Press.

In order to move closer to patrol ratios in other states, the FHP needs to add 425 officers by 2012 -- an average of about 70 officers a year. Yet the Legislature did nothing with legislation to add more troopers this year.

And then there's the salary consideration. While starting salaries for troopers range from $33,000 to $38,000 a year, pay increases have been slow in coming in the past several years. As a result, FHP troopers frequently are hired away by police departments and sheriffs' offices that offer more pay and better benefits.

It's not unheard of for a trooper to gain an extra $6,000 a year or more just by putting on the uniform of a different agency. The FHP loses about 10 troopers a month to other law-enforcement departments.

FHP Col. Christopher Knight has said that retention has been a problem for the agency. "If we can get this thing funded and get a personnel boost, we'll begin to set the stage to get to where we want to be," he told a reporter recently.

Perhaps the corrections officers came out much better with the Legislature this year because of numbers: The guards, represented by the Florida Police Benevolent Association, number about 20,000. The 4,000 troopers and other state law-enforcement officers are represented by the International Union of Police Associations.

Moreover, the PBA has been extremely visible in Tallahassee during the session. In mid-March, about 1,000 uniformed prison employees rallied in Tallahassee, many wearing buttons saying, "It's Criminal to Pay Minimal" as they talked with legislators.

"There's a reason that you've done better over the last umpteen years than the average state employees," David Murrell, executive director of the PBA, said at the rally as he introduced legislators. "You have friends like these."

Unfortunately, FHP troopers only seem to have friends in low places.