|
|
SUMMARY
The
Office of the Auditor General has conducted a performance audit of
the Department of Public Safety’s Highway Patrol Division
(Division) pursuant to a June 16, 1999, resolution of the Joint
Legislative Audit Committee. This audit was conducted as a part of
the Sunset review set forth in A.R.S. §41-2951 et seq, and is the
sixth in a series of nine audits to be conducted on programs within
the Department of Public Safety (DPS). Specifically, performance
audits have been previously issued concerning DPS’ Aviation
Section (Report No. 00-7), Scientific Analysis Bureau (Report No.
00-12), Drug Abuse Resistance Education Program (Report No. 01-3),
Telecommunications Bureau (Report No. 01-5), and Licensing Bureau
(Report No. 01-10). Future performance audits will cover DPS’
Criminal Investigations Division, the Criminal Information Services
and Fingerprint Identification Bureaus, and agency-wide Sunset
Factors.
This audit
focuses on the Highway Patrol function within the Department of
Public Safety. Although Highway Patrol officers focus on patrolling
nearly 6,000 miles of state and federal highways, they have the
authority to enforce traffic, criminal, and state laws anywhere in Arizona. Additionally, highway patrol officers investigate traffic collisions,
make criminal arrests, promote traffic awareness and safety, and
provide support and specialized training to other criminal justice
agencies.
Highway
Patrol Division Could
Improve the Accuracy of its
Staffing Estimates
(See pages 9 through 15)
The Highway
Patrol Division needs to take several steps to improve the accuracy
of its staffing estimates. The Division uses the Police Allocation
Manual (PAM), a nationally accepted staffing model, to estimate the
number of officers it needs to adequately patrol the State’s
highways. The PAM model calculates staffing needs
based on officer workload data, such as the number of accidents
responded to; highway miles patrolled; and policy decisions, such as
how often a particular roadway should be patrolled. Several other
states, such as Colorado, Missouri, Oregon, and Washington, use the
PAM model.
However,
the Division has not updated the model nor some of the key
information used in the model since 1993. Therefore, before using
its staffing model to develop future budget requests, the Division
should take steps to refine the accuracy of the staffing estimates
its model produces. As one of the first steps, the Division should
identify exactly how changes in its workload data and policy
decision inputs impact the complex model’s results. To do so, the
Division should conduct a sensitivity analysis, which consists of
changing each input in the model one at a time by 5 percent to
identify how the change impacts staffing estimates. This would allow
the Division to focus its efforts on refining and ensuring the
accuracy of those inputs which have the greatest impact on the
staffing estimates. The Division should then review and revise as
necessary the policy inputs or goals used in the model before
running the model as a part of future budget requests.
Additionally,
the Division should take steps to ensure the accuracy of the officer
workload data that is entered into PAM. Finally, the Division should
also consider having its model updated or choosing an improved
version of PAM.
DPS
Needs to Develop Comprehensive
Motor Vehicle Fleet Size and
Replacement Policies
(See pages 17 through 25)
DPS needs to
develop comprehensive, objective vehicle fleet size and replacement
policies. DPS lacks sufficient and reliable vehicle use data to
evaluate whether the size of its fleet, currently over 1,600
vehicles, is appropriate. Because DPS’ motor vehicle fleet
represents a substantial financial investment to the State,
approximately $20 million, it is important to ensure it is the
appropriate size. A similar concern was raised in an Auditor General
report in 1991 (No. 91-11). At that time, DPS owned approximately
1,580 vehicles.
DPS
needs to ensure that its fleet consists of the appropriate number of
vehicles. First, it should collect sufficient and reliable vehicle
use data and then evaluate and revise, as necessary, its practice of
assigning a vehicle on a 24-hour-per-day basis to virtually all
sworn officers. Four of the 14 states auditors contacted restrict
take-home vehicles to certain officer positions. For example, the
California Highway Patrol and the Oregon State Police assign
vehicles to officers on a 24-hour-per-day basis only under special
circumstances. Second, DPS should use its vehicle usage data to
develop formal fleet size policies for all of DPS’ divisions.
Currently, only the Highway Patrol has a fleet size policy. However,
this policy is based on current practice rather than demonstrated
need. Third, DPS needs to better monitor how many miles each vehicle
is driven and eliminate low-mileage vehicles as appropriate.
In
addition to developing fleet size policies, DPS also needs to
develop a comprehensive vehicle replacement policy. Currently, there
is no consistently applied, objective standard identifying when
Department vehicles will be replaced. Although DPS reports that
highway patrol vehicles are eligible for replacement after they have
reached 100,000 miles, auditors identified several problems with
this standard. For example, it was developed based on perceptions of
available monies rather than on an objective study that identified
when it is most cost-effective to replace vehicles.
Other
Pertinent Information
(See pages 27 through 28)
During
the audit, other pertinent information was gathered regarding the
new highway patrol officer positions recently appropriated by the
Legislature. The Division will be receiving funding to create 116
new highway patrol officer positions over fiscal years 2002 and
2003, but the Division did not request as many officers as its
staffing model indicates are needed. The most recent appropriation
of officer positions focused solely on the staffing needs for
metropolitan Phoenix and Tucson, which had the greater officer
shortage. The model continues to show that an additional 65 officers
are needed statewide. Further, the Division believes these estimates
may understate its staffing needs because the Arizona Department of
Transportation has not been able to provide the Division with
updated traffic counts since 1999 due to a computer problem.
Read full report in Acrobat PDF format
|
|
