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Budget cuts may mean no state trooper academy in 2009 Tuesday, Jun 17, 2008 By John Lyon Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - Unless its budget outlook improves, the Arkansas State Police will have no money for new hires or promotions in the coming fiscal year and will not hold its annual training academy for troopers, the agency's top financial officer said Monday. Responding to a reduced budget forecast and rising gas prices, the state police agency has slashed $4.3 million from its operations budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1, Emma French, fiscal officer for the agency, told the Arkansas State Police Commission at its regular monthly meeting. "Anyone that was on the payroll right now will stay on the payroll, but there are no budgeted positions for next year," French said. "We also gave up the 25 vacant budgeted positions for troop school, which means we do not have a troop school in the budget for '09." The state Department of Finance and Administration notified state agencies in April that the projected state budget for fiscal 2009 would be reduced by $107 million because of declining tax revenue. French said the state police portion of the cut was $6.9 million, including a $2.9 million cut to the operations budget and a cut of nearly $4 million to the Arkansas Wireless Information Network's budget. The agency reduced its operations budget by an additional $1.4 million to allow for skyrocketing gas prices. The average price of a gallon of regular gas in Arkansas on Monday was $3.91, according to the American Automobile Association. "We chose to budget fuel at $4.75 a gallon - which now we have concerns that maybe that was a little too low, but that is what we did - and that caused us to have to take another reduction of $1.4 million. So our total reduction out of the agency operations fund ... is $4.3 million," French said. The reduction means 71 positions that the agency planned to fill will go unfilled, including 45 in the Highway Patrol Division, six in the Crimes Against Children Division, three in telecommunications, four in information technology and 13 in support staff. The agency has reduced its budgets for training by 73 percent, for professional services by 48 percent and for covert operations by 20 percent, French said. Capital outlay and data encryption were eliminated from the budget entirely. "Now all of this could change if we are able to receive more general revenue as we go through the year, or something happens and our funding is increased," she said. State Police Director Col. Winford Phillips told the commission he did not want to paint "a grim picture." "This is not set in concrete. I'm very optimistic about our department and our future," Phillips said. State Police spokesman Bill Sadler said after the meeting the agency has temporarily halted new hires and promotions at various times in its history because of budget crunches. No training academy was held in 1981, 1982 or 2001-2003, he said. There are no plans to cut back on patrolling the state's highways, Sadler said. If rising gas prices or other costs were to make additional cuts necessary, however, the agency would consider assigning troopers to stationary patrols, he said. A trooper on stationary patrol is assigned to a particular zone and does not move from that zone except in emergencies. |
