Oklahoma’s Public Safety Boss Says Cuts May Lead to Trooper Furloughs

The new commissioner of Oklahoma’s Department of Public Safety has warned lawmakers that furloughing troopers and other personnel is one of the few ways the agency has to respond to looming budget cuts.

Commissioner Michael Thompson outlined his budget request to members of a Senate budget panel, who grilled him on how the agency is prioritizing its spending and urged him to look for other ways to save money.

Oklahoma lawmakers working to cut roughly $600 million from the state’s budget are asking agency heads to present scenarios for cuts ranging from 5 percent to 10 percent. Thompson said a cut of even 5 percent to the $88 million budget it receives from the state would result in 20 furlough days for the agency’s roughly 1,400 employees.

“That’s where our money is at – personnel,” said Thompson, a former trooper and Iraq War veteran tapped last month by new Republican Gov. Mary Fallin to lead the department. “We spend about 93 percent of our appropriated dollars on salary and benefits. When we start cutting, we’re going to start cutting into folks and people.”

Committee chairman Sen. Jonathan Nichols expressed concern that agencies such as DPS may be “hedging agency budgets” and carrying over millions of dollars to soften the blow of budget cuts. Nichols, R-Norman, asked the department to provide more details on $13 million categorized as “office furniture and equipment,” $675,000 spent on litigation costs, and roughly $30 million in agency carryover funds.

“If a 5 percent reduction is going to result in an immediate decrease in the amount of public safety, that is a furlough of a trooper, you can understand why as a subcommittee chairman, I’m going to ask why there is $13 million in an account for office furniture and equipment, and why can’t that be cut as part of the 5 percent,” Nichols said. “Why can’t we go into these other accounts?”

Maj. Rusty Rhoades, a spokesman for the patrol, said the agency was working to provide the committee with a breakdown of the $13 million but said it was “absolutely not” spent on furniture. He added that some of the carryover money has strict statutory limitations on how it can be spent.

Thompson requested nearly $30 million in new funding from lawmakers to hire more troopers and to replace vehicles and an aging communications tower, but Sen. David Myers, the chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, said that figure was unrealistic.

“Your request is a 41 percent increase in your budget if I’ve calculated it correctly,” said Meyers, R-Ponca City. “We need to be finding some realistic ways to solve this budget problem, and adding 40 percent? I’m a firm believer in public safety, but we’re just not going to get there.”

Thompson said if DPS doesn’t receive any additional appropriations, the agency plans to request an increase of $4.25 on the cost of a driver’s license to offset the costs for producing the licenses and to pay for maintenance on its communication system.

After the meeting, Thompson said he plans to carefully scrutinize the agency’s budget and see what savings could be realized that would prevent trooper furloughs.

“We’re going to look at everything before we even look at pulling troopers off the road,” Thompson said. “The last thing I want to do is take a trooper off the road, because I think the state of Oklahoma deserves that protection.”