TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – The number of speeding tickets issued by the Florida Highway Patrol has dropped for three straight years as the agency deals with a shortage of troopers.
Since 2010, the agency has lost 993 troopers -- or about half of its workforce of 1,946 troopers, to retirement or resignations, the highway patrol's director Col. Gene Spaulding told the Tampa Bay Times.
"That's a big turnover," said Spaulding, a 24-year veteran of the agency. "That's really tough."
This spring, for example, Spaulding said the agency has 240 vacancies and the reinforcements aren't filling the void. The trooper academy typically has 80 recruits per class three times a year. He said the current class doesn't even have half of that number.
The highway patrol's troop commander for the northeast Florida region, Maj. Steven Harris, told News4Jax on Thursday that the shortage has not affected troopers on a day-to-day basis, and the agency continues to enforce the law.
"At this point, we've been able to try the best we can to absorb that through improving our operation process," Harris said.
Spaulding said the agency does what it can to provide public safety, patrolling areas that include Interstates 4, 75 and 95 and Florida's Turnpike in the nation's third most populated state, which also doubles as a tourist destination.
The Times cited low pay as a possible reason for high turnover. A starting trooper in Florida makes about $34,000, the same wage that's been in effect since 2005. In Mississippi, starting pay for a trooper is $38,000 and $47,000 in Louisiana.
It's been three years since the last pay raise for most of state law enforcement. The $82.4 billion budget passed this year by the Florida Legislature includes a 5 percent raise. Even so, the salaries will remain behind troopers in surrounding states. And, the Times noted, local police and sheriff agencies are luring troopers with pay increases. In Miami-Dade County, for example, the starting salary is over $50,000.
"This is (a) crisis," state Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, told the newspaper. He's been advocating for two years for across-the-board pay raises for state workers.
When News4Jax asked Harris whether more funding would help, he said, "Anything would be helpful in that area." But he said the highway patrol is also taking steps to recruit more troopers.
"(We) try to attract people by holding types of open houses after hours through our recruitment offices, through media trying to assist us in getting the word out that we would enjoy the opportunity to look at any potential candidates," Harris said.
According to Spaulding, response times for troopers are getting longer as the workload increases. In 2011, the state reported 229,000 crashes. In 2016, the number increased to 395,000 crashes. And the number of tickets written by troopers has dropped about 18 percent from 317,000 in 2011 to 258,000 in 2016.
Harris said fewer troopers naturally mean fewer tickets.
"I believe it can be logically correlated when you have a reduction in staff, you probably will see a reduction in citations," Harris said. "But we try to do everything we can, and it's not just about issuing citations, it's educating the public and also trying to change driver behavior."
Local governments are picking up the slack, said Sarasota County Sheriff Tom Knight, who spent 20 years working for the highway patrol. In 2008, for example, Knight said the sheriff's department worked 38 percent of the crashes in Sarasota County. Now it's up to 71 percent.
"It's not the fault of the highway patrol," Knight said, adding that the Legislature is not stepping up to take care of the highway patrol.
Drivers are also trying to do their part, saying that the shortage is just another reason why it's important to drive responsibly.
"Stay awake. Stay alive. Keep your eyes on the road," driver Calvin Deere told News4Jax.