CHP May Get to Hire 270 Officers

SACRAMENTO â€”  Fearing that the safety of the state’s motorists could be in jeopardy if vacancies in the California Highway Patrol are not filled, the Schwarzenegger administration has reversed itself and agreed to hire as many as 270 officers.

The about-face has evolved quietly during the last few weeks as state agencies have braced for potential layoffs as part of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s effort to balance his proposed $103-billion budget.

It also marks at least the third time that the governor has abandoned a proposed cut in health and safety programs because of potentially adverse consequences.

Responding to legislative concerns over the proposed cuts, CHP Commissioner D.O. “Spike� Helmick testified recently that the extra demands of protecting California from terrorism and a far-reaching order to leave vacancies unfilled had strained the patrol’s ability to ensure safety on roadways.

“We are doing more work with 90 officers less than prior to Sept. 11, 2001,� Helmick told lawmakers. The current budget gives the CHP an authorized force of 6,136 officers, but the agency is operating at about 90 fewer than full strength. Of that force, 5,373 are assigned to road duty.

Helmick said that cost cutting last year eliminated 50 officer positions and that the force would be further weakened by the administration’s demand to not fill 270 existing positions for which money had not been approved.

In the meantime, he said, fatal accidents and arrests for drunk driving have increased in the last five years as the state’s population has increased, more vehicles have crowded the roads and motorists have traveled millions more miles.

Given the CHP’s additional duties to help ensure homeland security, some in the Legislature fear that the agency is stretched dangerously thin.

“The number of Highway Patrol officers on the street is at such a low level that I believe we are facing a public safety risk unless we reverse this,� said Sen. Joe Dunn (D-Santa Ana), chairman of a budget subcommittee that has voted to fill all 270 vacancies at an estimated cost of $28 million.

Budget writers in the Assembly also have endorsed filling officer vacancies, but at a slightly lower cost of $25 million.

Belt-tightening also extends to the CHP’s nationally acclaimed training academy, which has been virtually shut down since September. The academy typically produces about 300 officers a year and has contracted to train other states’ traffic patrol officers.

Unless it reopens soon, CHP officials fear, no new officers will be available for a long time to replace veterans retiring at a rate of 25 a month. Academy training takes about six months.

Business, Transportation and Housing Secretary Sunne Wright McPeak, Helmick’s immediate superior and a member of the governor’s Cabinet, detailed the administration’s change of heart last week.

She said she now favors filling all the vacancies, but Schwarzenegger and officials in the Department of Finance have not decided how many slots should be activated.

McPeak also said she, the governor and Director of Finance Donna Arduin had been unaware -- until alerted by lawmakers in April -- that downsizing at the CHP had become a crisis.

McPeak said she was “pretty confident that public safety has not yet been compromised� by budget cuts. “We are covering our responsibilities. We are trying to get ahead of the issue.�

In a report, Helmick said projections indicated that at the end of May there would be 120 vacancies, which would swell to 200 by Sept. 1 as additional officers retire.

He reported that in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, the demands of homeland security had created duties that would take 383 officers to perform. He said that 23 new officers were assigned to those tasks but that 360 were reassigned from patrol jobs to anti-terrorist work.

The new tasks included protecting the governor and members of the Legislature, inspecting vehicles for explosives, and guarding such potential terrorist targets as bridges, science labs and nuclear power plants.

“Nobody told us about this,� McPeak said of the administration’s order to keep vacancies open. “We had a budget proposal that treated the Highway Patrol just like everybody else.�

McPeak said she now thought it was “very reasonable to fill those positions ... recognizing that there are reasons for treating the Highway Patrol differently than other departments.�

Other high-profile budget reductions proposed by Schwarzenegger have stirred controversy, and he has reversed several of them. Among the dropped proposals: repealing a 1967 law that guaranteed services to developmentally disabled Californians; eliminating state money for in-home care of the blind, aged and disabled; and reducing compensation to physicians and other healthcare providers in the Medi-Cal program.