October 23, 2000 - Report: Police planes misused - By The Associated Press
PORTLAND - Oregon State Police has taken money from highway patrol and other operations to pay for two expensive aircraft that contribute little to police work, a report says.
One aircraft, a twin-engine Beechcraft King Air, has been used to shuttle state police executives to meetings and boat trips, The Oregonian has reported. The other aircraft, a Bell JetRanger helicopter, has been so misused that it was transferred to Portland where it may better help fight crime, the report says.
The report goes on to say that the state police budget has no room for the two aircraft, and to cover the cost, estimated at $500,000 this budget period, the agency must divert money from other areas - a difficult task given existing financial woes.
The report also lists other issues:
State police are scouring their operations, cutting where they can to come up with $3.8 million to balance the budget. An improvement to the police computer system has been put off. Patrol cars have longer lives, going 120,000 miles when they used to be retired at 95,000. Commanders across the state are under orders to cut spending on equipment and supplies.
The cuts also directly hit the front lines - the troopers patrolling Oregon's highways. The agency is holding 20 trooper jobs empty. Money intended to pay those wages instead will be used to balance the budget.
Even in the face of such belt-tightening, the agency's administrators have shown no interest in cutting back on their expensive air fleet. The fleet and its eight pilots will cost an estimated $2.1 million this biennium - almost exactly the amount that would pay for those 20 troopers missing from the road.
The agency is fortunate in part because the Oregon Legislature has supported the air fleet - to a point. About $1.3 million was set aside to cover one patrol craft and four planes dedicated to game enforcement. But the Legislature wasn't asked to set aside money for the King Air or the JetRanger, and consequently didn't.
Instead, police administrators are handling the expense internally. They have to find an estimated $500,000 to pay for the two aircraft and the only way to do that is to cut other operations. "Sometimes we have to rob Peter to pay Paul," said Maj. Danny Bisgaard, the agency's budget director.
Although the agency contends the King Air is vital to its operations, the twin-engine plane spends most of its time at the hangar in Salem. Flight records show the aircraft averaged just 11 missions a month since January 1999 - about one every other work day.
Flight logs and request forms reviewed showed few police emergencies for the King Air among the flights. In some instances, the flights - which cost $444 an hour for the plane and $80 an hour for the two pilots - had little to do with protecting people or enforcing the law.
For example, former superintendent LeRon Howland and three of his top executives took the King Air from Salem to Lewiston, Idaho on Sept. 9, 1999. The flight put them in place to start a four-day trip down the Snake River, tagging along with a game trooper going on a jet boat patrol.
Superintendent Ron Ruecker said it was a "work trip." He said he and others checked fishing licenses along the river. He also said the administrators used the solitude for planning.
Ruecker conceded the administrators took fishing gear with them. Agency policy intended to guard against appearances of impropriety prohibits employees from taking fishing gear in agency vehicles, unless a supervisor approves.
Such trips clash with the agency's written policy for using its aircraft. The policy says that taking employees from one place to another on aircraft "will be the exception rather than the rule and normally will be approved only for high priority law enforcement operations or emergencies."
Ruecker nonetheless said he believes his air fleet is providing vital public safety services to Oregon. He acknowledges that the agency is cutting other services to keep the entire fleet in operation. He said the 20 empty trooper slots, scattered around the state, aren't harming the agency's mission. It has about 400 troopers and a biennial budget of $165 million.
But as he explained how he managed the vacancies, he told of occasionally shifting troopers around to fill needs. To illustrate, he told of recently assigning an additional trooper to McMinnville to patrol Highway 18, one of the state's deadliest highways. "One more trooper there, we felt, could make a difference," Ruecker said.
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State Police Clip Chopper's Wings - Lack Of Funding Puts Helicopter On Auction Block
SALEM, Ore., Updated 12:48 p.m. PDT October 23, 2000 -- The Oregon State Police's crime-fighting helicopter is grounded for good. Police officials tell KOIN 6 News that a lack of money will keep the high-flying tool out of the skies.
The OSP got the Bell JetRanger in 1997 by trading in six surplus choppers donated from the military. But flying the helicopter wasn't free: At $276 an hour, and an additional $40 an hour for a pilot, fighting crime from the chopper wasn't cheap. None of that money was covered by the budget, and with a shortfall of almost $4 million, the state police decided the chopper had to go. OSP plans to sell the helicopter for about $350,000.
Police officials say that in about three years, the helicopter was involved in the arrest or detention of 120 people as well as eight successful search and rescues.
The state police do have a fleet of single- and twin-engine planes that they use in crime-fighting endeavors. Their operation is paid for in the budget.
Half of the state police forces in the country use a helicopter.
Copyright 2000 by Channel 600
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