Gov. Sam Brownback will deliver his sixth State of the State address this evening in Topeka.
He’ll be laying the groundwork for this year’s legislative session. The state is facing a massive budget shortfall for the next fiscal year--but the Kansas Highway Patrol is already asking for a spending increase.
The Kansas Highway Patrol is asking lawmakers to increase the vehicle title fee to pay for more troopers.
Titles cost $10. The KHP wants to add $7.50 to the fee, which would be the first increase since 2003.
The department says only those titling or registering a motor vehicle pay the fee, which ties directly to the patrol’s statutory mandate to enforce laws relative to the operation of vehicles.
Lt. Adam Winters of the Patrol says the agency is facing a shortage of troopers throughout the state.
"Currently, we are about 80 to 85 troopers down right now from what we normally have had in the past," he says. "And what that does is it slows our response times down. We’ve had several counties where we only have one trooper assigned, or no troopers assigned."
Winters says if approved, the title fee increase will allow them to hire an additional 75 troopers in the next few years.
He blames several factors for the decline in staffing in recent years.
“We’ve had a lot of retirements in the last several years," he says. "Also, I think the way law enforcement is portrayed nowadays with all the issues out east, I think it has made law enforcement a lot less desirable of a career for a lot of young people.”
The patrol’s training academy graduated 20 new troopers in December, which is slightly higher than the normal class size of 10 to 15 troopers.
The troopers are stationed throughout the state where staffing levels are low. They’ll spend the next few months in field training with a veteran officer in their assigned county.
The highway patrol has funding for one training class a year, which begins in July and lasts 23 weeks.
In 2006, the KHP was staffed with 501 troopers. That number has decreased to 419.
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