COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE BUDGET HEARING
STATE CAPITOL HARRISBURG, PA
MAIN CAPITOL BUILDING 14 0 MAJORITY CAUCUS ROOM
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2 019 10:11 A.M.
PRESENTATION ON PENNSYLVANIA STATE POLICE AND OFFICE OF HOMELAND SECURITY
BEFORE: HONORABLE STANLEY E. SAYLOR, MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HONORABLE ROSEMARY M. BROWN HONORABLE SHERYL M. DELOZIER HONORABLE GEORGE DUNBAR HONORABLE JONATHAN FRITZ HONORABLE MATT GABLER HONORABLE KEITH J. GREINER HONORABLE SETH M. GROVE HONORABLE MARCIA M. HAHN HONORABLE DOYLE HEFFLEY HONORABLE R. LEE JAMES HONORABLE FRED KELLER HONORABLE JOHN A. LAWRENCE HONORABLE JASON ORTITAY HONORABLE CLINT OWLETT HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER B. QUINN HONORABLE JAMES B. STRUZZI II
Debra B. Miller dbmreporting@msn. com 2
BEFORE (continued): HONORABLE JESSE TOPPER HONORABLE RYAN WARNER HONORABLE MARTINA A. WHITE HONORABLE MATTHEW D. BRADFORD, DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN HONORABLE DONNA BULLOCK HONORABLE MORGAN CEPHAS HONORABLE CAROLYN T. COMITTA HONORABLE AUSTIN A. DAVIS HONORABLE MARIA P. DONATUCCI HONORABLE ELIZABETH FIEDLER HONORABLE MARTY FLYNN HONORABLE ED GAINEY HONORABLE PATTY KIM HONORABLE STEPHEN KINSEY HONORABLE LEANNE KRUEGER HONORABLE STEPHEN McCARTER HONORABLE BENJAMIN V. SANCHEZ HONORABLE PETER SCHWEYER
ALSO IN ATTENDANCE: HONORABLE TIM BRIGGS HONORABLE DANIEL J. DEASY HONORABLE MATTHEW DOWLING HONORABLE CRIS DUSH HONORABLE DAN FRANKEL HONORABLE JOSEPH C. HOHENSTEIN HONORABLE BARRY J. JOZWIAK HONORABLE ROB W. KAUFFMAN HONORABLE JEFFREY P. PYLE HONORABLE FRANCIS X. RYAN HONORABLE CHRIS SAINATO HONORABLE BRIAN SIMS HONORABLE CRAIG T. STAATS HONORABLE TODD STEPHENS HONORABLE DAVID ZIMMERMAN
ALSO PRESENT: HONORABLE MADELEINE DEAN, CONGRESSWOMAN, 4th CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT 3
COMMITTEE STAFF PRESENT: DAVID DONLEY MAJORITY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR RITCHIE LaFAVER MAJORITY DEPUTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
MIRIAM FOX DEMOCRATIC EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR TARA TREES DEMOCRATIC CHIEF COUNSEL 4
I N D E X
TESTIFIERS
~ k ~ k ~ k
NAME PAGE
LIEUTENANT COLONEL ROBERT EVANCHICK ACTING STATE POLICE COMMISSIONER, PENNSYLVANIA STATE POLICE...... 7
MAJOR SCOTT PRICE ACTING DEPUTY COMMISSIONER OF ADMINISTRATION AND PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY, PENNSYLVANIA STATE POLICE...... 8
MAJOR EDWARD HOKE ACTING DEPUTY COMMISSIONER OF STAFF, PENNSYLVANIA STATE POLICE...... 11
MAJOR JAMES E. DEGNAN ACTIVE DEPUTY COMMISSIONER OF OPERATIONS, PENNSYLVANIA STATE POLICE...... 16
SUBMITTED WRITTEN TESTIMONY
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See submitted written testimony and handouts online under "Show:" at:
https://www.legis.State.pa.us/cfdocs/Legis/TR/Public/t r finder public action.cfm?tr doc typ=T&billBody=&billTyp=& billNbr=&hearing month=&hearing day=&hearing year=&NewCommi ttee=Appropriations&subcommittee=&subj ect=&bill=&new title= &new salutation=&new first name=&new middle name=&new last name=&new suffix=&hearing loc= 5
1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 * * *
3 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: I call the
4 Appropriations hearings to order.
5 We are joined today by the Acting Commissioner,
6 Lieutenant Colonel Robert Evanchick; Major Scott Price,
7 who is the Acting Deputy Commissioner of Administration and
8 Professional Responsibility -- wow; Major James Degnan,
9 who is the Acting Deputy Commissioner of Operations; and
10 Major Edward Hoke, who is the Acting Deputy Commissioner of
11 Staff.
12 We are also joined today by Chairman Rob Kauffman
13 of the Judiciary Committee. I believe Representative
14 Briggs will be joining us as well. Representative Sainato,
15 who is the Chairman of the Democratic Veterans and
16 Emergency Preparedness Committee. Jeff Pyle from the
17 Liquor Control Committee is here.
18 And I believe we will also have at some point
19 Representative Deasy. I don't know if he's here yet or
20 not.
21 Okay. With that, gentlemen, if you would raise
22 your right hand and repeat after me:
23 Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are
24 about to give is true to the best of your knowledge,
25 information, and belief? If so, say "I do." 6
1 (Testifiers responded "I do.")
2
3 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Thank you, gentlemen.
4 You may be seated. And we'll move on to our first
5 questioner.
6 Once you guys are ready, we are going to go to
7 Representative Struzzi.
8 REPRESENTATIVE STRUZZI: Good morning. Thank
9 you, Mr. Chairman.
10 Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for being
11 here.
12 First and foremost, I want to say that I truly
13 appreciate the services that you provide. It's vital to
14 Pennsylvania and our Commonwealth to adequately fund your
15 operations. But with that said, I would like to get right
16 to the matter obviously on the top of our minds, and
17 especially the constituents that I represent.
18 I come from an area that's a mix of urban and
19 rural municipalities, but our top municipality probably has
20 15,000 people. It's Indiana County. And so I'm very
21 concerned, as we start talking about this per capita fee,
22 the impact that that's going to have on our local
23 residents, particularly in an era where we're all troubled
24 with property taxes, senior citizens on fixed incomes.
25 I recently received a letter from one of our 7
1 municipalities that they are looking at most likely an
2 increase of $320 per year for each household based on this
3 fee. So my question then is, you know, the rationale
4 behind this per capita fee and the exploration of any other
5 initiatives -- combining forces; creating subdepartments,
6 perhaps within the sheriff's office -- other options in
7 lieu of this fee and your feedback on that.
8 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: Well, first of
9 all, personnel costs for any State agency are astronomical,
10 usually based on salary and benefits. Our personnel costs
11 are about 77.5 percent of our overall budget, and
12 84.1 percent of that comes from the general governmental
13 operating funds. It plays a significant role in our
14 budget.
15 The funding for some of these things is hard to
16 examine. They are hard to quantify. But we look at the
17 average cost of a Trooper on the road being at about
18 $105 per hour, or about $220,000 a year, so it's a very
19 costly number for us. As we get removed from the
20 Motor License Fund in the next several years in decreasing
21 amounts of between $30 and $40 million, that funding has to
22 come from somewhere.
23 In the big retrospect of picture, there are
24 municipalities, especially rural ones, that don't have a
25 lot of residents and, unfortunately, would have to pay a 8
1 fee as well. It's important that we are funded, no matter
2 where that funding comes from, and this is one of those
3 particular areas of coming up with a fee.
4 It's a starting point. We don't know if it's the
5 end-all and be-all, but it's a way to start the
6 conversation on trying to fund the Pennsylvania State
7 Police so we can keep providing the services that the
8 citizens deserve.
9 You know, there's talk over the years about
10 regionalization, and some people have looked at that.
11 Other departments have closed their doors and closed their
12 businesses. Last year, there were seven municipalities
13 that did away with their agencies. So far this year, there
14 has been two more added to that list. So it is a funding
15 thing for even the municipalities to maintain their
16 agencies, let alone the State Police as well.
17 Do you have anything you want to get to that,
18 perhaps?
19 MAJOR PRICE: Yeah.
20 As the Colonel said, one of the significant
21 burdens that we face is this isn't static and it' s never a
22 status quo kind of thing. The number of municipal
23 departments folding versus those being established, those
24 folding have outpaced those being established by a ratio of
25 three to one. And that creates a very significant burden 9
1 for us, because oftentimes we don't have a sufficient
2 ramp-up time to move staffing and look at incidents and
3 resources. So that becomes particularly burdensome for us
4 with these departments disbanding, and that creates a
5 further strain on our resources, which seems to be
6 exacerbated year by year as we look at the number of
7 municipal departments.
8 REPRESENTATIVE STRUZZI: Have you considered a
9 service-based fee based on, you know, the amount of calls
10 that you have per municipality or anything like that?
11 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: We have recently
12 looked at some of those. We are putting some numbers
13 together to come up with an idea.
14 You know, not only do we work for, you know,
15 municipalities without a local police department, we also
16 supplement those that have part-time departments as well,
17 and that number is very costly as well. Sometimes a
18 department will have 4 0 hours of coverage. We then have to
19 make up for the remaining amount of time.
20 Also, some of the services that we provide not
21 only go to those agencies but to those that are full-time
22 agencies as well. We spend a lot of resources and money
23 for specialty services, SERT operations, our laboratory
24 services and fees, and those types of areas. And that
25 goes to anyone within the Commonwealth, as well as some 10
1 law enforcement Federal agencies as well.
2 So we're always looking at different ways to save
3 money. Internally, we have looked at some different things
4 that we have been doing. We also have some ideas, perhaps
5 maybe not necessarily in this type of fee but other fees
6 that maybe could be attached to certain services or
7 whatever, that could bring some of that money in for us.
8 However, I don't know if it would amount to $103 million at
9 this point.
10 REPRESENTATIVE STRUZZI: I understand that, and I
11 understand this is a complicated issue. But I do think it
12 is somewhat unfair to burden those municipalities that may
13 not have as much of a need for this service as others.
14 It's just something to consider.
15 And I appreciate that you mentioned cost-cutting.
16 That was one of my next questions, looking at innovation
17 and how you do reduce some of the expenses. Especially as
18 it seems like the operations are expanding and changing
19 with the digital age, I appreciate that there's an effort
20 to cut some expenses and perhaps look at programs that are
21 outdated or need changed or removed.
22 My final question. I see I'm out of time.
23 Just very quickly---
24 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: I have to---
25 REPRESENTATIVE STRUZZI: Yes. 11
1 Well, I'll come back to that. Thank you,
2 gentlemen.
3 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: We'll do another round
4 then.
5 With that, I wanted to recognize three Members
6 that are here that are not on the Appropriations Committee
7 that have joined us: Representative Jozwiak,
8 Representative Ryan, and Representative Staats.
9 With that, we'll move to Representative Krueger.
10 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
11 Over here, gentlemen. Thank you so much for
12 joining us here today.
13 Two weeks ago when we had the Auditor General
14 here, we talked about untested rape kits, and he shared
15 with us that there's still about a thousand untested rape
16 kits here in Pennsylvania, and his estimation was that it
17 would cost about a million dollars to test all of the
18 sexual assault evidence submitted each year. He was giving
19 us a figure of about a thousand to 1500 per kit and a
20 number of about a thousand untested kits.
21 So I would love to get your input on what it
22 would take to fully eliminate that backlog. What would it
23 take to get that number down to zero?
24 MAJOR HOKE: Representative, you know, I'm
25 pleased to report to you that the Pennsylvania State Police 12
1 Bureau of Forensic Services has been making great strides
2 since 2015 in reducing significantly the backlog of rape
3 kits across the Commonwealth.
4 As you are aware, in 2015, there was a mandate
5 put forward---
6 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER: Mm-hmm.
7 MAJOR HOKE: ---that the rape kits be turned over
8 to the labs that were in the possession of law enforcement
9 agencies across the Commonwealth.
10 In 2016, the Pennsylvania State Police Laboratory
11 saw an increase from, in 2015, we had 755 cases submitted
12 to us. In 2016, that number jumped to 1,107. Last year,
13 we had 1,028 submitted to us for processing.
14 During this same time period in 2018, we were
15 able to process 1,163 of those cases, again, cutting into
16 the backlog, because we were keeping up with the
17 submissions of the cases that came to our laboratories and
18 we were able to work down on the backlog.
19 At the end of the period -- now, this is specific
20 to PSP Bureau of Forensic Services -- we had 390 cases
21 remaining within our backlog, or within our possession.
22 It's important to note that everything stands
23 upon a definition. The legislation has now identified for
24 the law enforcement community what constitutes a backlog of
25 cases, and that's anything 12 months or more that has been 13
1 in their possession.
2 Also, you are familiar with the fact that we are
3 now required to turn around a rape kit that is submitted to
4 us within 180 days, within 6 months. I'm again proud to
5 report to you that the Pennsylvania State Police Bureau of
6 Forensic Services has been able to do that within 160 days.
7 So they have been working very diligently, and
8 they project into the future that we will not only be able
9 to continue to reduce the number of backlog cases that are
10 in our possession but also to get to a point where we're
11 able to manage those more successfully.
12 We have implemented a number of procedures within
13 our laboratories to streamline processes. In 2017, we
14 brought on 11 total personnel into the serology department,
15 into the DNA laboratories, to help us reduce that backlog,
16 and so we're very confident.
17 We're never going to actually eliminate all of
18 the cases because it's a constant flow of activity, if you
19 will. Cases are constantly coming to us, so we're
20 constantly processing those. But our goal, again, is to
21 reduce that backlog of those cases that are over a
22 specified period of time.
23 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER: Thank you.
24 And beyond just the funding issues with having
25 the resources to test the kits, are there any systemic 14
1 barriers that you are challenged with in trying to get this
2 number down as close to zero as possible?
3 MAJOR HOKE: Our biggest challenge right now in
4 the Bureau of Forensic Services is space.
5 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER: Okay.
6 MAJOR HOKE: We operate seven laboratories across
7 the Commonwealth, but the Greensburg lab is specifically
8 tasked with handling our DNA services.
9 Before a rape kit can go to DNA, it goes through
10 serology first, and then once they are finished with their
11 work, then they pass that up to the DNA labs. But that has
12 been one of our most significant challenges, is the space.
13 That's why the Greensburg DNA lab is so critically
14 important to us.
15 We have run into a delay with the anticipated
16 date of construction for that. We were hoping at this
17 juncture to be able to report to you that that laboratory
18 was actually under construction. However, that has not
19 taken place for a couple of reasons. Number one is that
20 they have run into some issues with stormwater planning and
21 things of that nature and some permitting issues as well.
22 But to that end, we are hopeful by June of this year that
23 we'll be able to move that project forward.
24 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER: And how long will it
25 take to complete it? 15
1 MAJOR HOKE: We're looking at approximately
2 2 years, a window from when we break ground to when we
3 believe that we would occupy that facility. So that would
4 take us into June of 2021.
5 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER: Thanks for your work on
6 this issue. We know that testing rape kits and catching
7 folks now actually helps prevent future crimes. Many of
8 these are repeat offenders. So thanks for the positive
9 steps you have been able to make on this issue. I
10 appreciate it.
11 MAJOR HOKE: You're welcome.
12 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: This issue had come up
13 previously, in a previous hearing here. This same issue
14 had come up, Commissioner, last year. So it's interesting
15 to note that the problem that a lot of our individual
16 taxpayers have across the State in getting permits are the
17 same problems you're having, which I find amazing when
18 State agencies in Pennsylvania can't even get permits and
19 move on fast enough to do something on such a critical
20 issue. So it's a shame that our State agencies are not
21 being helpful in solving this problem. So thank you for
22 that comment.
23 We will move on to Representative Keller.
24 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
25 Thank you, Commissioner and other Members of the 16
1 Pennsylvania State Police. I appreciate the job that all
2 our law enforcement does keeping us safe here in the
3 Commonwealth. We generally see people when they're having
4 a good day. When you see them or your officers see them,
5 they are generally not. But a couple of questions.
6 Does the State Police provide services for
7 100 percent of the municipalities in the Commonwealth?
8 MAJOR DEGNAN: The short answer would be, yes,
9 sir.
10 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Okay. But just different
11 levels, I guess.
12 MAJOR DEGNAN: Right.
13 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Okay.
14 Also it was mentioned, you know, the cost of
15 having a Trooper, you know, on the road in a car every hour
16 and by the year, so do we track the costs or do we have the
17 means to track where the officers or where the Troopers are
18 spending their time?
19 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: Well, we could
20 look at municipalities and what type of incidents that we
21 go to. We do have that data. However, we would have to
22 extrapolate a lot of ancillary things out of there.
23 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Yeah. But we could write
24 a program or something, because we know where the Trooper
25 is; we know where the vehicle is. We know all that stuff. 17
1 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: Yes.
2 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Okay. Because I guess
3 the point I would want to get to, I'm getting down to the
4 fee that is proposed to charge municipalities that don't
5 either hire a police force from another municipality or
6 share forces or have their own force, and when I look at
7 that, I would think an analysis based on usage might be
8 beneficial or a more equitable way to do it. Has that been
9 considered?
10 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: Well, we're
11 looking at that right now. You know, that might be a way
12 to do it as well.
13 You know, when we look at population densities,
14 you know, you'll have certain areas that are going to have
15 more population that are going to have more need for our
16 services.
17 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Where the State Police,
18 where the State Police are the primary law enforcement in
19 these municipalities that don't have their own forces or
20 hire contract for it, do you do patrols routinely on the
21 roads like a municipal police force would do?
22 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: We do to some
23 degree, but usually we're incident driven. So if we have
24 unobligated time, the members may be in that particular
25 borough. 18
1 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: So there's some counties
2 that don't even have a State Police Barracks; correct?
3 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: No, I believe not.
4 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Located within that
5 county.
6 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: I think we have
7 one in almost every county, yes.
8 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Union County doesn't.
9 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: Well, we share
10 that one with another adjacent county.
11 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Yeah. That's in — my
12 point is, we're going to charge people more money just
13 based on a flat fee, and are they really getting the same
14 thing that somebody else is paying for?
15 And I think that's really the question when we
16 look at this, and I guess I would just like a commitment
17 out of the PSP that we're going to maybe look at a
18 different way of doing it simply because of charging places
19 because they don't have as much crime, you know. I think
20 we're more looking at how to get dollars rather than how we
21 collect the dollars effectively, and that's my concern.
22 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: Well, a proposal
23 for a per-incident fee, so as to speak, would be very hard
24 to quantify. I mean, you may have people coming through
25 your area that don't even reside there get involved in a 19
1 crash or a criminal incident, which would then cause the
2 State Police to respond. To charge a municipality for
3 something like that might not be a very viable thing.
4 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Well, what I think you
5 could do, if it's traffic related, you could probably
6 extrapolate that. You could probably take the calls that
7 you have in a municipality and do a scoring. Take a mean
8 somewhere in the middle, getting rid of the highs and lows,
9 and get an average cost, and then do like a 3-year average
10 and bill every municipality based upon the usage. I mean,
11 that, to me, doesn't seem like it's unreasonable. I mean,
12 would you think that would be unreasonable?
13 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: It's a
14 possibility, yes.
15 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Yeah. I think it would
16 be a lot fairer than charging people $25 just because they
17 don't have crime.
18 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: We would still be
19 concerned with the service that we provide to those with
20 the local police department as well, because we spend a lot
21 of our time and efforts in some of those localities as
22 well.
23 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Yeah. So you spend time
24 in municipalities that have their primary police.
25 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: That's correct. 20
1 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: And you sometimes just
2 spend more time in those than you do in some municipalities
3 that have no police coverage.
4 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: Depending on the
5 type of incidents or investigations, yes.
6 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Yeah. So then that just
7 goes to verify that just doing a peanut butter spread of
8 $25,000 we don't think would be equitable.
9 I mean, I guess that's what I'm hearing from the
10 testimony. I just want to make sure that I understand it,
11 that there's some municipalities with a police force that
12 we spend more State Police resources in on calls that are
13 not traffic related than other municipalities that maybe
14 don't have a police force. I think we just need to look at
15 that.
16 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: Right.
17 MAJOR PRICE: Sir, one of the concerns that, you
18 know, when we look at an incident-based driven model, and
19 you make an excellent point looking at an average of
20 perhaps a 3-year, you know, a 3-year mean or a median kind
21 of thing. But the one thing that I would say, in those
22 discussions, the one thing that we're always concerned with
23 is, you know, the cost, the benefit. If we did it strictly
24 incident-based driven, there would likely be -- we would
25 likely need extra personnel. 21
1 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Okay. If I could just,
2 one more thing, and I guess I would like to, the
3 municipalities, once we charge this, would they see any
4 difference in coverage than they're getting now?
5 Would the rural municipalities see any more
6 patrols or any more coverage? Because I know right now, my
7 municipality contracts with the borough next to it, and
8 what happens is, if there's a call and it's not anything
9 urgent, they say, call Middleburg Police. The State Police
10 don't respond because we contract with the Middleburg
11 Police.
12 So people may get charged and won't get any more
13 coverage, yet those resources are still going to be spent
14 in municipalities where they have higher crime than what we
15 do, and I think we all realize that. I would just like us
16 to take a look at it.
17 Thank you.
18 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Very good.
19 We'll move on to Representative Bullock.
20 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: Thank you, Chairman.
21 Good morning, gentlemen. I'm back here. Good
22 morning.
23 Each year I ask this question around diversity,
24 and honestly, I have never been really quite pleased with
25 the answer from the State Police. 22
1 This year, I did a little bit of my homework,
2 and, you know, the numbers continue to be discouraging:
3 6.8 percent of the State Troopers are people of color,
4 while our State population is 17.9 percent of
5 Pennsylvanians are people of color; 6.6 percent are women,
6 while women make up 51 percent of our Commonwealth
7 population.
8 If you look at this another way, 87.2 percent of
9 our State Troopers are White males. This is important,
10 because you have a responsibility to protect and serve
11 Pennsylvanians across the Commonwealth, and those
12 Pennsylvanians are diverse, and diversity is very important
13 when it comes to criminal justice and relationships between
14 people and those who protect and serve us.
15 Unfortunately, when I dig a little deeper, I
16 wonder whether we will see a brighter future when it comes
17 to the diversity of the State Police. In recent years,
18 about 39 percent of our applicant pool have been people of
19 color or women. Yet, when they get through the Academy and
20 graduate, that number dwindles and dwindles at each step of
21 the way to about 14 percent of the graduates.
22 Can you tell me what steps you are taking so that
23 we can have a more diverse State Police? Where do you see
24 there to be some opportunities? What are the issues along
25 the path from application through the Academy and 23
1 graduation? And clearly we still have a long way to go,
2 but I would be interested in hearing your feedback.
3 MAJOR PRICE: Yes, ma'am. Thank you.
4 You're absolutely correct. We work diligently to
5 do better, but we need to do better.
6 You had cited, in the past 3 years, we have
7 actually had 35,000 applicants apply to the Pennsylvania
8 State Police. We're proud of that, because in a time when
9 police agencies have difficulty recruiting qualified
10 candidates, we get a great deal of interest. Of those
11 35,000 -- again, your numbers were correct -- about
12 40 percent are minorities. So at the time we actually
13 sign up to take the initial test, we are seeing very good
14 numbers.
15 Historically, those numbers have dwindled and
16 dwindled throughout the process. The first stage of that
17 process, actually getting the folks who signed up for the
18 test to take the test, we have seen almost 75 percent
19 attrition. So in the 2017 testing cycle, we saw 4,000
20 minorities sign up to take the test, but we lost 75 percent
21 who didn't even take the test, and that's really an area
22 that we have begun to focus.
23 This year at our recruiting conference, we
24 actually went to Penn State and did a recruiting
25 conference. We brought Coach James Franklin in, because 24
1 he's an exceptional recruiter, because we're trying to
2 emphasize the same philosophies that he uses.
3 In the past when we looked at some of the
4 metrics, we spent a great deal of money on advertising, and
5 there wasn't sufficient follow-up. So when we looked at
6 the performance metrics and the internals, the money that
7 we spent on advertising we weren't necessarily getting a
8 great result from. And so where we believe from the outset
9 we need to improve our efforts is in continuing engagement.
10 Recruiting isn't just advertising. Advertising is a very
11 small component.
12 So we have increased our communication with our
13 applicants right out of the gate: emails, blast text,
14 phone calls, and house visits. We think it's very
15 important for our recruitment personnel to get to know
16 families, just like Coach Franklin or a college football
17 recruiter might do, because very often the families, we
18 would hope, are the support structure, and if they have a
19 positive feeling for Pennsylvania State Police, then
20 potentially they encourage the recruit to stay in the
21 process.
22 So that resulted in almost, our first statistics
23 resulted in almost 50 percent of our minority candidates
24 actually taking the test. So it's a 100-percent
25 improvement, from 25 percent to 50 percent, and so we're 25
1 already seeing some payback, some dividends on that.
2 The other area that we have begun to focus in,
3 we know that with the Veterans Preference Points, in any
4 particular list, the first 200 candidates potentially have
5 Veterans Preference Points. So we need to target folks
6 with Veterans Preference Points, and particularly we need
7 to target diverse candidates coming out of the military.
8 To that end, what we have actually done is we
9 contracted with an outside vendor. We just engaged in this
10 process in about the last month with the Yellow Ribbon
11 Campaign and an outside vendor who will do data mining for
12 us, to actually extract the diverse candidates with
13 Veterans Preference Points so that we can focus on them and
14 allow them to leverage the advantage that they are given
15 with the Veterans Preference Points to get them into that
16 top 200.
17 So those are just a few of the more significant
18 things that we have started, you know, looking at from the
19 beginning of the process right on through the Academy.
20 There are a whole host, and I see them all the time, but
21 there are a whole host of other things that I think we're
22 implementing to make those incremental improvements where
23 we need to.
24 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: I appreciate your
25 answer, and I would like to talk further with you about 26
1 some of the strategies you are using to recruit and to
2 support applicants through the entire process through
3 graduation.
4 MAJOR PRICE: Yes, ma'am.
5 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: Thank you.
6 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative
7 Greiner.
8 REPRESENTATIVE GREINER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
9 Good morning, Colonel and others. I appreciate
10 you being here today.
11 I want to follow up on my prior two colleagues
12 earlier who talked about the local coverage, you know, by
13 the State Police. You can see it's a big issue. And for
14 me personally, my district is split, meaning I have, a
15 large part of my district is covered by township police,
16 and there's a significant portion, at least land mass-wise,
17 that is covered by the State Police.
18 And in your testimony that you provided to me,
19 you said that in 2018, seven municipal police departments
20 changed from full- or part-time coverage to relying on the
21 State Police for its full-time police services. And my
22 questions are more, maybe not specifically number driven as
23 much as just theory: Are municipalities required to report
24 their intentions to disband their local law enforcement
25 coverage and request the Pennsylvania State Police to cover 27
1 their municipality full time? How would that work?
2 MAJOR DEGNAN: Sir, we have a procedure that was
3 adopted that the community, if they are looking to
4 discontinue their services, advise us in writing and give
5 us a projected date of when they will stop services. We
6 like to get that as far in advance as possible so that we
7 can get in with that department, take a hard look at what
8 happens in that community, so that when we absorb it, we're
9 ready and prepared and have knowledge of what's going on
10 there.
11 One of the things we face going forward,
12 traditionally, we get very short notice lately. One of the
13 best examples I can give you is the East Pittsburgh Police
14 Department out in the western portion of the State. In
15 grand total, we had talked about them discontinuing their
16 services for about a month and a half. When they actually
17 pulled the trigger, if you will, and discontinued services,
18 we had a 4-day warning.
19 REPRESENTATIVE GREINER: Wow.
20 MAJOR DEGNAN: That presents us with a very
21 dynamic problem of shuffling people into that service area.
22 And again, we have ongoing investigations that
23 are done by that department. There is considerations as
24 far as evidence storage. We have been working very
25 cooperatively with the District Attorney's Office out in 28
1 that area, and we made that transition as smoothly---
2 REPRESENTATIVE GREINER: But there is a procedure
3 in place to do so?
4 MAJOR DEGNAN: Yes, sir.
5 REPRESENTATIVE GREINER: Great.
6 I know I have only limited time. A couple other
7 quick questions.
8 Do you have an idea, or maybe you know, how many
9 municipalities have done so to date? How many have
10 disbanded and reached out to you saying, hey, we need, we
11 would like you to cover our area?
12 MAJOR DEGNAN: In 2018, as an example, five
13 different departments--
14 REPRESENTATIVE GREINER: And then how about---
15 MAJOR DEGNAN: -- terminated or regionalized,
16 sir.
17 REPRESENTATIVE GREINER: How about in '17 or '16?
18 I mean, it has probably been ongoing for a number of years
19 now.
20 MAJOR DEGNAN: It has, sir. Twenty-one total for
21 the past 3---
22 REPRESENTATIVE GREINER: 3 years.
23 MAJOR DEGNAN: 3 years is it?
24 MAJOR PRICE: Since 2014.
25 MAJOR DEGNAN: 2 014. 29
1 REPRESENTATIVE GREINER: Since 2014.
2 And you probably have this stat. You might not
3 have it at your fingertips. But what is the number of
4 municipalities, and we have a lot here in the Commonwealth
5 just the way we're set up, for which you provide full- or
6 part-time enforcement coverage currently?
7 MAJOR DEGNAN: 1297 that we provide full-time
8 police services for, sir.
9 REPRESENTATIVE GREINER: Is that about 50
10 percent, or---
11 MAJOR DEGNAN: Mmm, roughly, a little bit more.
12 REPRESENTATIVE GREINER: I think it would be
13 about 50 percent, if I kind of have an idea how many
14 municipalities we have.
15 And then I want to follow up maybe on what
16 Representative Keller had mentioned about, and maybe you
17 can provide some details, specifically as to what kinds and
18 the number of municipal calls Troopers typically need to
19 respond.
20 And then he had kind of mentioned this, too: Do
21 you have a breakdown, do you break that down then between
22 municipalities that actually have their own law enforcement
23 and those that don't? And that kind of got into what he
24 was saying where, you know, we're trying to, we're trying
25 to get our hands around this to try to come out and we're 30
1 going to do an allocation of what do you do or the easiest
2 way to do it.
3 MAJOR DEGNAN: I think we would have to move
4 forward on quantifying those numbers. The problem for us
5 lies in that we have, for lack of a better term,
6 "jurisdictional responsibilities" throughout the
7 Commonwealth.
8 Traditionally, we haven't really drilled down
9 into full-time/part-time calls for service. And there's
10 another component there. We could have a full-time
11 department that for some reason, whether investigative or
12 some other issue, isn't able to fulfill their service
13 coverage throughout a weekend or a few nights or a period
14 of time where we have to step up, by State law, and work in
15 that community while they resolve that issue.
16 So while we do drill it down to municipalities,
17 and we can work forward to getting you a better number to
18 look at that, traditionally, if it's a call for service, we
19 go.
20 REPRESENTATIVE GREINER: Yeah. I think this is
21 going to be -- if we go this route, I think it's going to
22 be very data driven. You know, last year, it was a set
23 fee. Now we have a sliding scale. And in mine, being a
24 split district, there's a lot of discussion on both sides
25 about the pros and cons of doing so. 31
1 So I know there will be more questions likely, so
2 thank you for your time.
3 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative Davis.
4 REPRESENTATIVE DAVIS: Thank you.
5 Thank you. Thank you for coming today.
6 I represent a number of lower income
7 municipalities that each have their own municipal police
8 forces. So in a lot of ways, we subsidize the areas that
9 don't have their own municipal police forces because we pay
10 for our local police force, for our State Police force, and
11 we also have a county police force. And quite frankly, for
12 the areas that I represent that have high numbers of crime
13 and limited resources, we're kind of tired of subsidizing
14 other parts of the State.
15 So my questions to you are, how does the range
16 of proposed fees compare to the State Police costs of
17 providing patrol services? And in addition, how does it
18 compare to the costs that municipalities would incur if
19 they operated their own police departments?
20 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: It's hard to
21 quantify how much a Trooper's salary and benefits would go
22 to actual patrol policy or patrol procedures.
23 Again, you know, the average cost for a police
24 officer to do patrol activity, including costs for the
25 patrol vehicle and training and equipment, comes to about, 32
1 you know, $105 per hour, or $220,000 per year.
2 For us to be able to provide that service on a
3 local basis, it might not be the right way to go for some
4 departments that disband their opportunities or their
5 departments as it is to keep their things in place at this
6 point in time.
7 It's hard to quantify, because usually our
8 response is driven by incidents, again, and we go where the
9 need is. We do go to jurisdictions where they have a
10 full-time police department, and we do saturation patrols
11 as well. We have gone down to the City of Chester and
12 spent time down there as well.
13 So it's really hard to quantify, really, which
14 way we need to go with these opportunities, whether it's a
15 fee or whether it's based on incident driven.
16 REPRESENTATIVE DAVIS: Well, can you also just
17 expand, if this proposal is enacted, what would be the
18 impact on your State Police operations?
19 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: State Police
20 operations, number one, would be impacted. Perhaps we
21 would not be able to provide the three cadet classes that
22 we're trying to get through each year.
23 This year, we're actually trying to put four
24 through. In June, I'm trying to put another class through,
25 as long as I can find the funding within my budget, to 33
1 hopefully get to our complement of 4719.
2 In my time in the State Police, we have never
3 even gotten close to being at our complement. Historically
4 every year, we lose perhaps anywhere from 150 to 300
5 Troopers through retirements and attrition. So my goal is
6 to keep funding those classes. Additionally, we would
7 probably be impacting our support services to other law
8 enforcement agencies as well as to Federal law enforcement
9 agencies as well.
10 There's a lot of things that we would probably
11 have to cut back on. We had $70 million in our budget for
12 safety equipment and some other concerns as well, upgrades
13 to the AFIS system. That was removed from our budget. So
14 those things would be impacted as well.
15 Another concern is, overtime costs would probably
16 increase, and historically, this past year, we probably had
17 about $25 million in unreimbursed overtime costs. That
18 doesn't include services that we provide to major events in
19 big cities and other places, which was probably another
20 perhaps $16 million of unreimbursed overtime. Historically
21 as well, we would probably impact the safety of our
22 officers as well as their well-being.
23 So they are just some of the things that would be
24 impacted by that.
25 REPRESENTATIVE DAVIS: Thank you. 34
1 I think particularly in Allegheny County, the
2 area that I represent, we have been having a number of
3 significant challenges around policing. Particularly, you
4 guys have just taken over East Pittsburgh, which is j ust
5 right outside of my district.
6 But we have tried to get creative in a number of
7 ways to provide better police services. I think you said
8 for one Trooper, it was $105 an hour, I think, per Trooper.
9 There are police officers in my district that are making,
10 quite frankly, $11 to $12 an hour and some police forces
11 that are entirely part time. So I think this is an issue
12 that we desperately need to look at and address.
13 And I know our county has wanted to take a more
14 proactive role in policing to lift some of the burden off
15 of you guys, but there are some funding gaps that you guys
16 are obviously realizing as well.
17 So thank you for your work on this issue.
18 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: We have been joined by
19 Representative Dush as well.
20 At this time, I'll call on Representative James.
21 REPRESENTATIVE JAMES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
22 Over here to your right, gentlemen.
23 Colonel Evanchick, thank you for your service to
24 the Commonwealth and all of us who live here, and thanks to
25 your entire complement, all the Troopers. 35
1 I would like to talk or ask a few questions, if I
2 may, on an item which I'm sure is very critical to you, and
3 that's communications.
4 The statewide public safety radio system, which
5 has been dubbed STARNet, has been a topic of conversation
6 for a number of years, and I see that in this budget
7 request, there's about a 3 percent, a request for a
8 3 percent increase in funding, 1.4 million, to upgrade to
9 what is known as the P25 Open Standards Technology System.
10 I wonder if you could bring us up to speed on where we
11 stand with STARNet and what P25, if fully implemented, will
12 do for the Troopers.
13 MAJOR HOKE: Representative, I would be happy to
14 answer that question for you.
15 I'm very happy to report to you that the current
16 STARNet project, the P25 radio program project, is--
17 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Would you move the mic
18 closer? I again remind everybody, if you would, keep the
19 mics close to you, because with the room, it doesn't carry
20 very well.
21 MAJOR HOKE: Representative, I'm proud to report
22 to you that the P25 radio project is on schedule and on
23 budget. Under the very capable leadership of Major
24 Diane Stackhouse and her staff, to include Bob Barnum, they
25 have been very successful in pursuing a very aggressive 36
1 rollout and deployment of the P25 radio system.
2 The P25 radio system will provide a number of
3 functions to the law enforcement community at large across
4 the Commonwealth; most importantly, interoperability, and
5 that is the ability to communicate with one another in
6 times of critical incidents, something that we don't
7 currently have readily available. That in and of itself is
8 a godsend to all law enforcement.
9 I can tell you that this program, the P25
10 contract, is for $44 million. When you look back over time
11 what was spent on the 800 MHz system, it's a very small
12 investment, if you will, but I believe it is going to
13 return a greater value to the law enforcement community and
14 first responders across the Commonwealth.
15 This year we're requesting approximately
16 $50 million in appropriations to fund the continued rollout
17 of the program. Approximately half of that appropriation
18 would be utilized for the infrastructure to procure radios,
19 mobile consoles, and the backbone, if you will, of the
20 network. The other half of that appropriation would be
21 utilized for the maintenance and the personnel costs
22 associated with moving that program forward.
23 Thus far, we have been able to deploy the P25 to
24 34 counties across seven Troops. In April of this year,
25 we're looking to deploy it down into Troop K in the 37
1 Philadelphia area. That will be followed up, once that is
2 successfully completed, up into Troop M into the Lehigh
3 Valley area of the Commonwealth.
4 I can tell you that the feedback that we received
5 thus far from the end users, which are our Troopers out
6 there using the system every day, has been very favorable.
7 The coverage area that has been contracted for is at
8 95 percent coverage, which is almost an unheard of industry
9 standard, if you will. And I can tell you, in some areas,
10 we're actually exceeding that coverage area.
11 So thus far, the rollout has been very
12 successful.
13 REPRESENTATIVE JAMES: Thank you very much.
14 Geography is a challenge here in this Commonwealth.
15 MAJOR HOKE: It sure is.
16 REPRESENTATIVE JAMES: How long will the
17 transition process take, do you think, until you're
18 complete?
19 MAJOR HOKE: We expect to have this deployed
20 across the Commonwealth through, if we stay on schedule,
21 and I suspect that we will, by June of 2021.
22 REPRESENTATIVE JAMES: Okay. Does this replace
23 all existing radios or does it -- I'm not quite clear on
24 that.
25 MAJOR HOKE: We're currently operating, in those 38
1 areas that do not have the P25 and those Troops that do not
2 have the P25, we have the 800 MHz radio system and also
3 what we refer to as our "legacy radio system," which is a
4 VHF system.
5 So those Troops that do not have P25 have two
6 different radio systems in there, and the reason we have
7 two systems is to pick up the void in coverage that we have
8 in specific geographic areas. So once P25 is implemented,
9 those other two systems will be decommissioned.
10 REPRESENTATIVE JAMES: A final question.
11 Do you interact then with local police such as
12 sheriffs' offices or police departments? Do they benefit
13 by this system as well?
14 MAJOR HOKE: Not only our local partners and
15 specifically the county 911s that do a lot of the
16 dispatching for local PDs across the Commonwealth, but also
17 our Federal partners are taking advantage of the P25.
18 To date, we have got ATF, the United States
19 Marshals Service, and DEA that are also utilizing the P25.
20 REPRESENTATIVE JAMES: Thank you very much.
21 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
22 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative
23 Fiedler.
24 REPRESENTATIVE FIEDLER: Hi. Thank you for being
25 here. 39
1 An investigation last year by ProPublica and the
2 Philadelphia Inquirer found that State Police were acting,
3 as ProPublica put it, as, quote, "an informal arm of
4 immigration enforcement."
5 At that time, there were no guidelines, as far as
6 I understand, from preventing Troopers from engaging in
7 what the investigation described as "truly egregious
8 behavior of racial profiling and unlawful arrests."
9 I understand you now have a new policy in place
10 to prevent profiling, unlawful searches, and that the
11 policy clarifies that civil matters, including immigration
12 violations, are not grounds for stops or detention. And it
13 also requires Troopers to fill out a report, including the
14 reason for the stop and its outcome.
15 Can you please describe for me what the new
16 policy entails as it relates to State Trooper behavior.
17 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: About a year and a
18 half, 2 years ago, it was brought to our attention that we
19 did have some people that were stopping individuals that
20 were kind of creating an issue for us. So we sat down
21 internally, and we also dealt with external stakeholders
22 from different advocacy groups as well, and we listened to
23 their concerns, the concerns from the community, to find
24 out what was going on.
25 We also looked at how we were documenting and 40
1 reporting our information on traffic stops, and we found
2 out that we were lacking in that area. So we did have a
3 policy in place years ago, but it didn't really address
4 traffic stops and those type of individual things, so we
5 decided to craft a product, a policy, to give our Troopers
6 guidelines out there to follow, to try and describe to them
7 the difference between a criminal warrant versus an
8 administrative warrant through the ICE process.
9 We have an RMS system now, a Records Management
10 System, that's in place that we are now able to track those
11 traffic stops. The Trooper then has to document the
12 interaction on those stops, document any type of law
13 enforcement action taken, as well as any interaction with
14 ICE or any other Federal agencies as well. This then will
15 be able to show what we are doing in these cases.
16 This is not to create a sanctuary state in any
17 way, as some people have said. This is a way of giving our
18 Troopers guidance and to protect the community out there as
19 well from any issues.
20 Heretofore, you know, when we talked about
21 administrative warrants, a lot of people were unclear on
22 what they were. This now gives us guidance there and helps
23 us to quantify what we are doing out there as well.
24 MAJOR PRICE: And, ma'am, just to add to what the
25 Colonel said, I would object to their characterization that 41
1 the State Police engage in racial profiling. I vehemently
2 object to that. And in fact if we receive allegations of
3 racial profiling, whether through our public complaint
4 application or in any other manner or means, every one of
5 those allegations is thoroughly vetted, investigated, and,
6 if there's a violation of policy, procedure, or law,
7 subject to disciplinary action.
8 So I just wanted to mention that in regards to
9 the characterization in that article that was placed out
10 there with a dearth of any evidence to suggest that that's
11 true.
12 REPRESENTATIVE FIEDLER: Thank you for that. And
13 again, that characterization as I read it was simply how it
14 was presented in the investigation.
15 MAJOR PRICE: Sure.
16 REPRESENTATIVE FIEDLER: So thank you.
17 I do want to ask you, because I see I have a
18 little more time, so the ACLU has applauded you for the
19 creation of this new policy, in the absence of a policy, a
20 new policy, but it has called it a baby step and has said
21 that they believe, and this is the ACLU believe "It's
22 unlikely to be enough to stop troopers' widespread and
23 unconstitutional practice of pulling over people of color."
24 And again, this is a quote from the head of the ACLU of
25 Pennsylvania. 42
1 Do you believe that the new policy is sufficient
2 and that it will ensure that that does not happen?
3 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: Yes, we do.
4 REPRESENTATIVE FIEDLER: That said, can you
5 describe for me the ways in which the State Police do
6 cooperate with ICE and the interaction that they do have?
7 MAJOR PRICE: And, ma'am, so Federal law, under
8 8 U.S.C. 1373, actually requires that entities provide
9 information to ICE when requested.
10 REPRESENTATIVE FIEDLER: Mm-hmm.
11 MAJOR PRICE: Our policy was constructed around
12 both case law, in the case of Arizona v. the United States,
13 but also in compliance with 8 U.S.C. 1373. No stop will be
14 extended beyond the purpose for which the initial stop was
15 initiated simply to address an individual's immigration
16 status, but essentially if ICE requests us for information,
17 pursuant to Federal law, we will provide the information.
18 REPRESENTATIVE FIEDLER: Thank you.
19 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative Topper.
20 REPRESENTATIVE TOPPER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
21 Over here. Thank you, gentlemen.
22 To go back to kind of follow up on Representative
23 James' point about the statewide system, is it my
24 understanding that now we are, in terms of the contract,
25 kind of paying as we go? So in other words, once we see 43
1 that it works in a certain area, then we're paying
2 Motorola? Is that an accurate assessment of kind of how
3 we're doing it this time to make sure we get it correct?
4 MAJOR HOKE: My understanding, Representative, is
5 that the contract encompasses the entire project. However,
6 there are certain criteria and benchmarks that must be met
7 before we will move on from that location.
8 And I can tell you that it's being reported to me
9 that Motorola has been a very good partner in this
10 initiative and that they have been very responsive to any
11 issues, in fact going above and beyond in some instances to
12 alleviate or even make better areas of coverage where they
13 have that opportunity. And sometimes it is at their
14 expense and exceeds the contract.
15 REPRESENTATIVE TOPPER: Excellent.
16 Well, it seems like we have learned, you know,
17 from past mistakes. It seems like it's going well this
18 time. So that's good.
19 Now, rural access to broadband has been an issue
20 that many Members of the General Assembly have been
21 passionate about, and recently there has been a lot of
22 discussion about selling unused space or capacity. I'm not
23 a tech guy, so I'm just asking, would a Commonwealth-owned
24 telecommunications infrastructure help facilitate Broadband
25 Internet? And if unused space or capacity is utilized on 44
1 State Police assets, does that present any problems for the
2 State Police? Does it create any future limitations? Do
3 you have any ideas on how that might work?
4 MAJOR HOKE: Sir, in the coming week, Colonel
5 Evanchick and myself will be meeting with Secretary Topper
6 to discuss the broadband initiative in Pennsylvania.
7 As you are aware, the P25 system, once it is
8 fully deployed, will encompass 120 radio towers. That is a
9 significant reduction from what we currently have in place
10 with the 800 system. There are currently over 1100 towers
11 deployed across the Commonwealth to support the 800 MHz
12 system.
13 Again, everything is in the definition. When you
14 think of a tower, some of these 450, to be exact, are
15 telephone poles with an antenna on top of them that have
16 been deployed in areas to increase our coverage. So they
17 are not true structural steel towers. Once the 800 system
18 has been decommissioned, those assets will fall by the
19 wayside as well.
20 But there are other towers that the Commonwealth
21 has erected to support the 800. I believe that number is
22 around 173, and that number will -- some of those will be
23 utilized for the P25, but others will not. So once those
24 assets are no longer used for public safety, they will
25 revert back to DGS. 45
1 To answer you and finish up here, all the assets
2 that the Pennsylvania State Police currently have under the
3 STARNet program are managed through the Crown Castle
4 contract. That's a separate private company, if you will,
5 that manages the allocation of tower space. They go out
6 and they, in the areas of that tower that are not being
7 utilized for public safety, they mark specific sections of
8 that tower.
9 REPRESENTATIVE TOPPER: Perfect. Thank you.
10 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
11 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative Kinsey.
12 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
13 Good morning again, gentlemen.
14 Commissioner, what I would like to do is talk a
15 little bit about school safety, and in particular the
16 Risk and Vulnerability Assessment Team.
17 I understand that there was a request to increase
18 the numbers, I believe from four to nine personnel with
19 that team. But what I would like for you to do is maybe
20 talk a little bit about what the team has done thus far.
21 It's my understanding that 104 safety and security
22 assessments have been completed with the previous team, so
23 is there an expected number, with the increase of staffing
24 or increase of personnel, is there an expected number of
25 assessments that we're looking at completing for this 46
1 upcoming year?
2 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: Yes. We believe
3 with the increase in our RVAT program, we will be able to
4 fulfill a greater need as far as those assessments out
5 there.
6 Granted, there is a training period. Our members
7 have to go out of State for a 2-week training period,
8 followed by a 9-month certification process. Once that has
9 occurred, those people will be able to go out there and do
10 these assessments full time on their own as well.
11 We have strategically placed them in three
12 different locations across the State, each team consisting
13 of three members. So we feel we will have a better handle
14 on being able to assess these or conduct these assessments
15 as well.
16 Additionally, we have been part of the School
17 Safety Committee through PCCD and as well as we are
18 instrumental in looking at local vendors or other entities
19 as well and give them criteria as far as whether they can
20 conduct the RVAT assessments as well, and we set that up
21 basically on some of the standards that we utilize for the
22 State Police.
23 So if someone wants, if a school agency or
24 whatever would like to contract with one of these vendors,
25 there are certain criteria and thresholds of competency 47
1 that they have to meet so people aren't just out there
2 blindly trying to contract with an entity that might not be
3 at a professional level, so as to speak.
4 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Sure. I appreciate that,
5 Commissioner.
6 And just to be clear, the assessment that's
7 taking place, is this schools at every level, including the
8 collegiate level, or is it pretty much just the elementary
9 through high school that we're looking to assess?
10 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: No. We do
11 elementary schools, high schools, the collegiate level. We
12 do critical infrastructure assessments as well. We do
13 universities. Our historical focus now has been before
14 the, you know, high school and middle school and grade
15 school-type levels, and we put them as a priority because
16 of the school safety aspects.
17 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Good. I appreciate that.
18 Commissioner, is this something that has to be
19 requested by the school districts as well as universities
20 themselves, or is this something, a mandate, but the RVAT
21 is actually doing at every single level? Like, what's the
22 approach?
23 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: They would contact
24 us and request an RVAT assessment, and then we would
25 schedule it and go down the road to, you know, basically 48
1 prioritizing them. Yes.
2 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: So if they're not
3 requested -- I'm thinking about the State-owned
4 universities, the 14 State-owned universities. So if the
5 universities do not request it, then the assessment is not
6 done. Is that how it works?
7 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: That's correct.
8 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Okay. Thank you very
9 much.
10 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
11 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative White.
12 REPRESENTATIVE WHITE: Thank you, Chairman.
13 I'm just going to get straight into my questions,
14 if that's all right, due to time constraints.
15 Can you just clarify how much and what kind of
16 funding is dedicated for the several different laboratory
17 facilities that you operate?
18 MAJOR HOKE: The State Police representatives
19 spend about $34 million a year to operate our main
20 laboratory in Harrisburg and the remaining six regional
21 labs across the Commonwealth.
22 REPRESENTATIVE WHITE: Okay.
23 Do you anticipate at any point, due to budget
24 constraints and rising costs, having to charge
25 municipalities or other departments for these services in 49
1 the future?
2 MAJOR HOKE: We currently have the ability to
3 charge a lab user fee.
4 REPRESENTATIVE WHITE: Okay.
5 MAJOR HOKE: Last year, we billed approximately
6 $17 million in lab user fees for the various services that
7 we provided. The return on that that we've seen thus far
8 is about 9 percent. It's a little over $1 million.
9 REPRESENTATIVE WHITE: And just, can you explain
10 the crime lab user fees' line item in your General Fund
11 Restricted Account? I think it would be great for
12 everybody to understand what that account is and the
13 reason for the reduction of funding from 4.4 million to
14 1.1 million.
15 MAJOR HOKE: The lab user fee, a part of that -
16 if you don't mind, some of the difficulty that we as an
17 agency see is the return on our investment, if you will.
18 The money that comes back to us is, again, only a fraction
19 of what we are spending to conduct the lab services. Part
20 of that is that the Supreme Court has set forth a
21 hierarchy, if you will, of payment, the individuals who get
22 paid first when a defendant reimburses the courts of the
23 Commonwealth for court-ordered restitution.
24 Typically, PSP is at the bottom of that
25 hierarchy, so we don't see a very good return on our 50
1 investment. But it has been since 2008 also was the last
2 time that we have raised our lab user fee. That's
3 something right now that we have tasked Major Turner-Childs
4 with looking at, is there a benefit overall to raising that
5 lab user fee.
6 REPRESENTATIVE WHITE: Okay.
7 What is the current status of the DNA Detection
8 Fund?
9 MAJOR HOKE: The DNA Detection Fund is healthy.
10 We are using that to actually fund the salaries of 11 new
11 employees that are working in our serology and in our DNA
12 labs. They were brought on board in 2017. However, the
13 problem with that fund is that if we continue to pay the
14 salaries and benefits of those employees, that has a life
15 span of about 4 to 5 years.
16 REPRESENTATIVE WHITE: Okay.
17 I would like to just briefly ask a couple of
18 questions regarding the sanctuary city issue and the new
19 policy that you have in place.
20 Do you currently permit your Troopers to
21 investigate persons in a vehicle other than the driver upon
22 a driving violation, and how does this impact the fight
23 against human trafficking?
24 MAJOR PRICE: Ma'am, just the issue of a traffic
25 stop and passengers in the vehicle, a passenger in a 51
1 vehicle, barring some other suspicion, it would be a mere
2 encounter. There's nothing to preclude a police officer
3 from asking questions of a passenger in a vehicle, but
4 there's really no ramification if the individual wants to
5 leave.
6 REPRESENTATIVE WHITE: Only if the officer has
7 reasonable suspicion.
8 MAJOR PRICE: No. In a mere encounter situation,
9 we can ask anybody anything, but they don't have to answer.
10 So we can walk up on the street and---
11 REPRESENTATIVE WHITE: Of course.
12 MAJOR PRICE: But in the particular case of a
13 vehicle stop, if a Trooper wants to engage with a
14 passenger, he may do so. But the policy restricts--
15 REPRESENTATIVE WHITE: Okay. I just wanted to
16 make sure that that was still permitted. That's all.
17 MAJOR HOKE: Sure. But what the policy
18 restricts---
19 REPRESENTATIVE WHITE: So thank you. I'm going
20 to move on to the next question, though.
21 MAJOR HOKE: -- is immigration status.
22 REPRESENTATIVE WHITE: Okay. Thank you.
23 Is it true that via your new policy, you will not
24 hold someone in custody based upon a detainer request
25 issued by a Federal law enforcement agency? 52
1 So if a Federal law enforcement agency issues a
2 detainer request for someone that you currently have in
3 custody, will you hold that person?
4 MAJOR DEGNAN: A detainer request? I think we're
5 looking at just the nomenclature.
6 One of the things we saw when we wrote this
7 policy, we saw administrative warrant---
8 REPRESENTATIVE WHITE: Okay.
9 MAJOR DEGNAN: -- was what was clearly identified
10 in some of our responses back. That process is not
11 criminal in nature.
12 REPRESENTATIVE WHITE: Right.
13 MAJOR DEGNAN: So if we were to get a criminal--
14 REPRESENTATIVE WHITE: Who issues administrative
15 warrants?
16 MAJOR DEGNAN: That would be ICE.
17 MAJOR PRICE: There's no--
18 REPRESENTATIVE WHITE: So a Federal law
19 enforcement agency.
20 MAJOR DEGNAN: Federal law.
21 REPRESENTATIVE WHITE: Okay.
22 MAJOR PRICE: Yeah. There's no judicial
23 intervention.
24 REPRESENTATIVE WHITE: Duly noted.
25 So with regard to that, do you -- if an 53
1 administrative warrant is issued, will you hold the
2 individual in custody if you so have them?
3 MAJOR DEGNAN: Not for an administrative warrant,
4 ma'am. We will hold them for the duration of our event,
5 whatever process we're doing.
6 REPRESENTATIVE WHITE: Is it true that an
7 administrative warrant comes with reasonable suspicion?
8 MAJOR PRICE: There's some question regarding
9 that.
10 MAJOR DEGNAN: It's--
11 REPRESENTATIVE WHITE: Isn't it clearly stated on
12 there?
13 MAJOR DEGNAN: One of the problems we have is
14 getting that information back when we request it.
15 A criminal warrant, completely we will hold for
16 the agency, but the administrative warrant does not come
17 back.
18 REPRESENTATIVE WHITE: Doesn't Interpol issue
19 administrative warrants?
20 MAJOR DEGNAN: Warrants, but these are
21 administrative. Those are criminal in nature.
22 REPRESENTATIVE WHITE: Okay.
23 All right. Thank you for your time. Those are
24 all -- that's all the time I was given to ask questions, so
25 thank you. 54
1 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: So, Commissioner, I
2 want to follow that up.
3 So you're telling me you do not cooperate with
4 ICE on their administrative?
5 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: That's correct.
6 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Is there a reason for
7 that policy?
8 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: The reason is
9 because if we detained them longer than our purpose, we set
10 ourselves up for liability as well as---
11 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: And who decided that
12 for you?
13 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: -- as well as
14 we're acting as an agent for ICE at that point.
15 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Who decided that for
16 you?
17 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: That was done
18 through our policy that we made as well as the legal people
19 that gave us some guidance on the law and opinion on the
20 law.
21 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Who specifically gave
22 you that guidance?
23 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: That would have
24 been through our legal---
25 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Who is that person? 55
1 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: That would have
2 been our Office of Chief Counsel in conjunction with our
3 policymakers here in house.
4 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: So the Administration
5 gave you that order from the Chief Counsel?
6 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: No. Our internal
7 people put that policy together.
8 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Who is that
9 individual? That's what I'm asking you.
10 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: That is us, the--
11 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: You're not an
12 attorney, so you don't have the ability to make that
13 decision. You're telling me an attorney made that
14 decision. I want to know who the individual is or who made
15 that determination?
16 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: Well, it was from
17 the Office of Chief Counsel, our Office of Chief Counsel.
18 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Okay. Very good.
19 I'll move on to Representative Comitta.
20 REPRESENTATIVE COMITTA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
21 Good morning, Mr. Acting Commissioner and the
22 leadership team. Thank you so much for being here.
23 As a former Mayor of the Borough of West Chester,
24 I have a good understanding of the challenges and
25 opportunities in law enforcement, and I thank you for your 56
1 service to the people of Pennsylvania.
2 Also, a former educator. I have been following
3 and am very interested and concerned about school safety.
4 There is a relatively new School Safety and
5 Security Committee, that there are members of that
6 committee from the Legislature, State agencies, and
7 professionals in the fields of mental health, education,
8 and security. And I'm wondering, as a part of that
9 committee, what are some insights that you have that will
10 relate to needs of Commonwealth schools that you have
11 gained in working together in close collaboration with the
12 diverse members of that committee?
13 MAJOR DEGNAN: Ma'am, we have worked very closely
14 with PCCD and Act 44, moving forward under that
15 legislation.
16 Do we handle school safety on a multitude of
17 levels? From the RVATs that we had previously discussed to
18 some of the interactions that we do in the field each and
19 every day, we learn from each one of those interactions.
20 Some of the things we have done is training the
21 individual schools, either through our community services
22 officers, preparing them for critical events if they should
23 happen; training local law enforcement.
24 We have promoted a school safety program where
25 each Trooper on patrol stops regularly at the schools and 57
1 they interact, and they build that cooperative effort
2 moving forward. We stood that up in September of last
3 year. We had roughly 80,000 calls that we have put our
4 feet on the ground at a school facility and interacted.
5 Again, the RVAT moves forward under the
6 legislation. We have those three teams now -- east, west,
7 and central -- working forward to making sure we get those
8 sites checked out and provide them a good product back that
9 they can mold their campuses to be a more secure effort.
10 REPRESENTATIVE COMITTA: So are there any
11 emerging new ideas, emerging collaborations, that are
12 coming out of these discussions relative to school safety?
13 MAJOR PRICE: Ma'am, just to mention, one of the
14 things that we are in the process of doing, Act 235, if
15 you're familiar with Act 235, the Lethal Weapons Training
16 Act, what we see is there's potentially an increased
17 interest in armed security, not necessarily police officers
18 but in armed security in a number of facilities that might
19 be potential vulnerabilities, that might be targets for
20 active shooters. It wouldn't just include schools. Of
21 course it involves hospitals and malls and things of that
22 nature.
23 Our Act 235 curricula has not been updated for
24 some time. We're actually in the process of revising and
25 revamping our Act 235 curricula, and part of those 58
1 revisions are to more specifically address and make the
2 training more robust in that particular area -- school
3 safety; active shooter; publicly vulnerable spaces.
4 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: We have also
5 trained all of our Troopers in Stop the Bleed training,
6 applying a tourniquet. We also had 14 of our SERT members
7 trained as EMTs, and we have recently checked that we also
8 have an additional 54 Troopers who are EMT certified. So
9 we are looking at to utilize their services as well as we
10 build out our program for responding to school safety.
11 REPRESENTATIVE COMITTA: Since I have another
12 minute, of course the Borough of West Chester has its own
13 local professional police department. There were a number
14 of occasions when I was Mayor that the State Police would
15 be called in as backup. Could you talk a little bit about
16 how that impacts your budget services and ability to serve
17 the people of Pennsylvania as part of mutual aid?
18 MAJOR DEGNAN: Ma'am, we regularly interact with
19 law enforcement throughout the Commonwealth when they have
20 that specific -- if they have a request such as West
21 Chester to do a saturation patrol or target some other
22 problem with the quality of life in that area. We
23 regularly operate like that.
24 We just approved one the other day for a city up
25 in, well, Wilkes-Barre city; again, saturation patrols. It 59
1 does have an impact on our budget, but we simply don't say
2 no. We go in and work with our partners each and every
3 day.
4 REPRESENTATIVE COMITTA: Thank you.
5 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative Brown.
6 REPRESENTATIVE BROWN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
7 And thank you, Commissioner, and thank you all
8 for being here and your commitment to public safety.
9 I'll try to keep my lead as short as possible,
10 but I do want to make a couple of comments, because as you
11 know, the country as well as Pennsylvania have been dealing
12 with a very strong drug crisis, the opioid, the heroin
13 epidemic. And on our work very much legislatively, we have
14 been working on prevention, education, enforcement, so our
15 efforts are all-inclusive.
16 And with that, you know, there's a lot of other
17 conversations going on. We have a Lieutenant Governor
18 taking a tour throughout the State regarding recreational
19 marijuana and getting feedback from Pennsylvanians.
20 And I have recently had some information on the
21 Drug Recognition Experts that the State Police have, and I
22 just wanted to confirm a little bit with you on those
23 experts, on the amount that we have, the goal of maybe
24 where we would like to be, where that funding sort of plays
25 into in your budgets, and the fact that what I'm hearing 60
1 from some of the counties is that our drug driving is
2 actually stronger than our DUI, even though alcohol is a
3 drug, but it' s actually, you know, our drugs as far as we
4 talk about marijuana and heroin and other substances.
5 But between the DREs, I would also like to ask
6 you your thoughts on recreational marijuana as far as the
7 implications to your positions, to public safety, and what
8 you might think that might play a role in as far as future
9 budgetary concerns, from what you're hearing from other
10 States, and the feedback.
11 I think it's a topic that's out there, and I
12 would like to get your thoughts. Thank you.
13 MAJOR DEGNAN: Well, as far as the DREs go,
14 ma'am, Pennsylvania State maintains 98 presently, certified
15 Drug Recognition Experts. We have also trained up another
16 89 municipal officers.
17 That program is very intensive. We would like to
18 expand on it, particularly when we look at the level of
19 arrests that we have. They are now not the traditional
20 alcohol but either a comingling of alcohol and some type of
21 drug, and our DUI drugs do continue to increase.
22 What we have done as a department, there's a
23 threshold before that, though. That's Standardized Field
24 Sobriety Testing. For the past 7 or 8 years, for example,
25 we have trained every Trooper with Standardized Field 61
1 Sobriety Testing as they have come through the Academy.
2 That's that first step, if you will.
3 You asked about an impact on our budget. With
4 only those 98, they get called into service quite often.
5 On average, you know, the traditional Friday, Saturday
6 night that we have normally seen in DUI doesn't exist
7 anymore, especially when we get into the DUI drug. They
8 happen at all times, day, night, whatever, and we have to
9 call that guy out, and that does have a direct impact on
10 our budget.
11 Again, we're trying to expand that role that we
12 have there, get more people trained up in this, if you
13 will.
14 As far as the marijuana recreational portion of
15 it, I think it's something that has to be treaded very
16 slowly into, particularly when we look at the DUI drug
17 aspect of it. You're adding another intoxicant onto our
18 roadways. We have to be very cognizant of that.
19 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: And I think we
20 need to look at what has gone on in other States as well as
21 far as enforcement and concerns that they have had. You
22 know, we have historically seen in some States, 18 months,
23 everything was well, and then it started to level off and
24 things went downhill from there.
25 You know, there is revenue stream there to be 62
1 made, but on the back side, will the social services and
2 costs there, you know, outweigh the income that you may get
3 in there as well. We don't know. But I know some other
4 States have already gone down this road, and we probably
5 need to take a look at what they have encountered out there
6 as well.
7 In some areas you have seen difficulty in
8 enforcing legal versus illegal marijuana then, and, you
9 know, it's something that we would have to really take our
10 time and see how that would affect us here in the
11 Commonwealth as well.
12 MAJOR HOKE: Representative, one thing I did want
13 to add is that there is an intermediary training that we
14 provide to our folks and also to local law enforcement, and
15 the acronym for it is ARIDE. That is to provide a level of
16 training to our Troopers above the Standardized Field
17 Sobriety Testing and between the DREs.
18 So because of the increase in DUIDs that we're
19 seeing on the highways, it gives them that added level of
20 training to recognize what potentially an operator of a
21 motor vehicle could be impaired upon and then further their
22 investigation from that point.
23 REPRESENTATIVE BROWN: Thank you all.
24 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
25 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Very good. 63
1 Before we move on to the next questioner, I
2 wanted to introduce that we have been joined by
3 Congresswoman Dean, sitting over there as well.
4 Congresswoman Dean used to be a Member of this
5 Committee at one time.
6 CONGRESSWOMAN DEAN: I love this work.
7 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Also, I must leave
8 temporarily for a meeting with other leaders, and I will be
9 turning the meeting over at this time to Representative
10 Gabler to Chair.
11 And I will recognize with that Representative
12 Schweyer for questioning.
13 REPRESENTATIVE SCHWEYER: Thank you,
14 Mr. Chairman.
15 Good morning, gentlemen. Over here. The other
16 side.
17 So welcome to you all. Thank you. I would like
18 to follow up on a couple of questions I had about
19 Pennsylvania's Instant Check System, if I could.
20 I had served on Legislative Budget and Finance
21 when we did the report that said that the rough costs then,
22 and I believe the numbers are still pretty close to being
23 accurate today, of the actual cost to the Commonwealth to
24 maintain the PICS system, given the number of firearm sales
25 that we have in Pennsylvania, is roughly $11 per check. Is 64
1 that correct?
2 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: That's correct.
3 REPRESENTATIVE SCHWEYER: Okay. And we receive a
4 grand total of 5 between the 2 that goes to the Feds and
5 the 3 for us, correct? So we are at a loss of roughly
6 $6 per firearm sale that has to be covered through your
7 general government account or your general obligation,
8 correct?
9 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: That would be
10 correct.
11 MAJOR PRICE: And just for clarity, so the $5,
12 $2 is the fee for a nontaxable transaction.
13 REPRESENTATIVE SCHWEYER: Okay.
14 MAJOR PRICE: And then there's an additional
15 $3 fee for a taxable transaction. So person-to-person
16 transactions would be $2. A "new from dealer stock," if
17 you will, would be 5.
18 REPRESENTATIVE SCHWEYER: Gotcha.
19 And when was the last time that fee was
20 increased?
21 MAJOR PRICE: To the best of my knowledge, it has
22 never been.
23 REPRESENTATIVE SCHWEYER: So we picked a number
24 back in the nineties when we created the Pennsylvania
25 Instant Check System and we said, we're cool; we're never 65
1 going to do that again?
2 MAJOR PRICE: 1998. Yes, sir.
3 REPRESENTATIVE SCHWEYER: Okay. All right.
4 Thank you.
5 Now, dealers. Now, I want to look at it from the
6 consumer perspective, and I need a little bit of help on
7 this because I have never purchased a firearm in my life.
8 So if you're a dealer, are you mandated to charge
9 that 5 or can you charge pretty much whatever fee you want?
10 MAJOR PRICE: No. The 5 is what comes back to
11 the Commonwealth.
12 REPRESENTATIVE SCHWEYER: Right.
13 MAJOR PRICE: But whatever fee the dealer wants
14 to charge for his time and effort to perform the background
15 check, that's---
16 REPRESENTATIVE SCHWEYER: And how much time or
17 effort does it take a typical dealer, say a small dealer,
18 not necessarily a large, you know, an Army/Navy type of
19 operation but something smaller like that, what would it
20 take a firearm dealer to perform that?
21 MAJOR PRICE: So it depends whether it's an auto
22 approval or not, if it has to go into research with an
23 operator. If it's an auto approval, it could be literally
24 minutes.
25 REPRESENTATIVE SCHWEYER: Okay. 66
1 MAJOR PRICE: Less than a minute in some cases if
2 it's using the Web-based system.
3 REPRESENTATIVE SCHWEYER: Mm-hmm.
4 MAJOR PRICE: Using the phone system, it has to
5 go to an operator to be vetted, because there are some
6 sorts of records. It could be up to 15 minutes if a
7 decision is made on the first call.
8 REPRESENTATIVE SCHWEYER: Okay. So they could
9 charge, a dealer could charge whatever they wanted to and
10 call it the tumble of tax if they wanted to, $50, $75 to do
11 a 15-minute transaction at worst-case scenario, where the
12 Commonwealth only receives $5 of that?
13 MAJOR PRICE: That's correct, sir.
14 REPRESENTATIVE SCHWEYER: So there's no consumer
15 protection for the purchaser of the firearm for a dealer
16 who is just using this as a way to increase the actual cost
17 of the firearm?
18 MAJOR PRICE: That's correct.
19 REPRESENTATIVE SCHWEYER: Okay. That seems dumb,
20 just full stop. It seems bad for the consumer, and the
21 fact that we're not receiving the full $11 that it would
22 actually cost to do what is basically a user fee for that
23 transaction also seems completely, completely silly.
24 So I appreciate that. It seems like we are
25 allowing gun dealers -- and I'm certainly not saying that 67
1 the majority or even many of them are doing this, but it
2 seems to me that we have created a system where the
3 Commonwealth is shortchanged and the consumer, the
4 purchaser of the firearm, may be or at least is at risk for
5 some level of exploitation from a, you know, less than
6 scrupulous firearm dealer.
7 So I appreciate that clarification. That's what
8 I thought, but I wasn't sure.
9 Kind of taking a step back, just a cleanup
10 question for you. I want to go back to the constant
11 question of the revenue side for the State Police.
12 I represent a little bit more than half of the
13 City of Allentown, and Allentown spends $38.7 million on
14 its local police coverage, whereas the second largest
15 municipality in Lehigh County, which is adjacent to the
16 City of Allentown, Lower Macungie Township, does not have a
17 local police presence.
18 So my question to you is, can I get a refund?
19 Because that's a lot of property taxes. I mean, we have a
20 24 mill rate for our land in Allentown. I mean, Lower
21 Macungie Township has, the last I checked, a 1 mill. So
22 can I get a refund?
23 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: I think we'd have
24 to look at whatever legislation is proposed---
25 REPRESENTATIVE SCHWEYER: Mm-hmm. 68
1 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: -- and how that
2 would be implemented based on population densities and
3 those types of things.
4 REPRESENTATIVE SCHWEYER: So if we can't — so if
5 we continue to be at a place like, I'm going to use
6 legislative prerogative and call her Mayor Comitta behind
7 me, who had to balance a budget with a local police
8 department. When I was president of city council in
9 Allentown, I had to balance a budget with a local police
10 department.
11 This is really a question about equity. This is
12 a question about municipalities that feel, frankly, like
13 we are being taken advantage of by putting up close to
14 $40 million. And I don't represent Philly. I don't
15 represent the City of Pittsburgh. I mean, I represent a
16 city of 128,000 people, give or take. But it seems to me
17 that there's a significant question of equity here.
18 So in addition to you solving your potential
19 budgetary concerns, there's also concerns for people like
20 me who represent cities that are willing to put our own
21 property tax money where our mouth is for our State and
22 public safety, and so we have to look at that not only as a
23 question of finances but also equity.
24 Thank you both. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
25 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Thank you. 69
1 Next will be Representative Owlett.
2 REPRESENTATIVE OWLETT: Thank you so much,
3 Colonel, for coming down today, and I appreciate you taking
4 the time to be here.
5 I just have a couple of questions.
6 On Act 44, again just returning back to school
7 safety, a very important issue in the Commonwealth, how
8 many school assessments has PSP undertaken maybe this past
9 year?
10 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: In 2 018, we did
11 104 assessments. I don't have the actual number of how
12 many we have done so far in 2019.
13 REPRESENTATIVE OWLETT: Okay. And how many
14 requests? The reason I'm asking that, our superintendents
15 are on that list of requests, so I'm curious how many.
16 What's the backlog on that. How many are we looking at
17 doing?
18 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: Sure.
19 For public school, K to 12, we have a
20 122-assessment backlog. For private school, K to 12, we
21 have a 60-assessment backlog. Higher education, we have a
22 16-assessment backlog, and the total education backlog
23 basically is 198 assessments.
24 REPRESENTATIVE OWLETT: Okay. So I'm very glad
25 that we're up to nine officers doing those assessments. 70
1 What kind of timeframe would we be looking at
2 once -- are those nine all completely trained doing the
3 assessments currently, or what's our timeframe for that
4 200?
5 MAJOR DEGNAN: For the training cycle on that, if
6 you will, sir?
7 REPRESENTATIVE OWLETT: Yeah.
8 MAJOR DEGNAN: The last RVAT member will receive
9 his training here at the end of March.
10 REPRESENTATIVE OWLETT: Okay.
11 MAJOR DEGNAN: And it's basically an on-the-job
12 training cycle where he'll go out and work with another
13 team member until we get him up to speed--
14 REPRESENTATIVE OWLETT: Okay.
15 MAJOR DEGNAN: -- so that he's fully certified
16 and familiar with it.
17 We would hope to at least double the number of
18 RVATs that we're doing in a 12-month period once those two
19 members, or once those additional members come on line.
20 REPRESENTATIVE OWLETT: Okay. Are we looking at
21 a year? Two years?
22 MAJOR DEGNAN: Conservatively, probably a year, a
23 year and a half.
24 REPRESENTATIVE OWLETT: Okay.
25 My concern with that is, you know, schools are 71
1 requesting to have a risk vulnerability study done, and
2 then there was an incident and PSP wasn't able to get
3 there. Does that open us up for liability? Would the
4 school be able to say, hey, we tried, you know, but we
5 couldn't get it. So that would be just my concern.
6 And I appreciate you investing the dollars and
7 then putting the time and energy into that. I just would
8 love to see you continue it even more and look at some more
9 options. Maybe there are some more options out there to
10 serve these schools.
11 Another question that I had, kind of changing
12 gears a little bit, across the nation we have seen a huge
13 decline in recruitment with law enforcement and finding
14 qualified candidates. I'm just curious, have you seen a
15 decline, and you answered this a little bit, but have you
16 seen a decline in qualified candidates for PSP?
17 MAJOR PRICE: We are fortunate in that we haven't
18 necessarily seen a decline in applicants, and our applicant
19 pool is sufficiently large.
20 As I mentioned, we had about 40,000 applicants
21 over the last 3 years for, you know, potentially 1200 total
22 positions. So in terms of our metrics, we really are
23 fortunate in that we're able to get a sufficient number of
24 qualified candidates from the large number of applicants we
25 have. 72
1 REPRESENTATIVE OWLETT: Great. That's awesome.
2 And Mansfield University is in my district. It
3 has an amazing Act 120 program. One of your former
4 officers runs the program, Director Henry. And we have had
5 conversations, you know, in the past about what it would
6 look like for Act 120 students to then be enrolled into a
7 PSP program. Obviously they're required to do something
8 like 20 weeks right now for the Act 120 and then an
9 additional 28 weeks potentially for PSP.
10 Would there ever be a conversation that could be
11 had about what it would look like to do a shortened program
12 with PSP, because a lot of that is review, that maybe would
13 save the PSP some money for a specific class that was just
14 120 students, maybe as the fourth class of the year could
15 do it in 10 weeks, how much money would that save. Has
16 there been conversations about that or could there be
17 potentially in the future?
18 MAJOR PRICE: Yes and yes.
19 REPRESENTATIVE OWLETT: Okay.
20 MAJOR PRICE: Actually, some States do something
21 similar to that. I believe Delaware has a program similar
22 to that whereupon -- now, Delaware trains Act 120 and
23 Delaware State Police together. They're in the same
24 classes to start out, but then they do some sort of a
25 reacclimation to DSP, specific to DSP policies and 73
1 procedures.
2 So there is a model for that. I think it's
3 largely logistical---
4 REPRESENTATIVE OWLETT: Yeah.
5 MAJOR PRICE: ---because our Academy, you know,
6 our Academy, essentially we can support about 200 cadets at
7 any given time. So when we're doing classes at the
8 frequency we are now, potentially we would have to replace
9 one of those classes. We would have to have a sufficient
10 number of applicants. It ultimately comes down to some of
11 the metrics, but the conversation is one that is ongoing.
12 REPRESENTATIVE OWLETT: That's great. I
13 appreciate it. I realize there's probably some logistical.
14 It's a nightmare to try and figure out, but it seems like
15 it might be a way to save some money and get a few extra
16 Troopers out on the road.
17 So I appreciate you coming down. Thanks.
18 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Next will be
19 Representative Donatucci.
20 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: Thank you,
21 Mr. Chairman, and thank you all for being here today.
22 So under Act 79, firearms are relinquished to the
23 Pennsylvania State Police in domestic violence and PFA
24 cases. What will it take to carry this out, and does it
25 require additional resources and are there additional 74
1 costs?
2 MAJOR HOKE: Representative, we have been
3 exploring all of our options with regard to Act 79.
4 Currently, there is no way for us to truly assess what
5 volume of firearms may be having to be relinquished over to
6 the Pennsylvania State Police. So it's difficult for us at
7 this point to project out with any certainty what that
8 would mean to our facilities management folks.
9 Right now, the direction being given to our
10 personnel across the Commonwealth out in the Troops would
11 be when that circumstance presents itself, that we would
12 accept those weapons at our local station and/or Troop
13 level. If at some point the capacity becomes such that or
14 the volume of those weapons becomes too voluminous for us
15 to maintain at those facilities, we are looking at
16 provisions to house those weapons securely.
17 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: Okay. So have any
18 been relinquished since the act has been passed?
19 MAJOR HOKE: Not to my knowledge.
20 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: Okay.
21 MAJOR HOKE: My knowledge.
22 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: All right. Thank you.
23 That's all I have.
24 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Thank you.
25 Next will be Representative Fritz. 75
1 REPRESENTATIVE FRITZ: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
2 And thank you, gentlemen, for being here this
3 morning. The Pennsylvania State Police provide a critical
4 service in our Commonwealth, and for that, my sincerest
5 gratitude.
6 In my region, we have a certain subset of
7 industries that are the primary economic drivers. I'm
8 talking about agriculture, construction, timbering,
9 bluestone, and natural gas development. So with that in
10 mind, I want to speak to an item, an initiative that
11 provokes some ire, and it is the commercial vehicle ban.
12 If you could kindly share with us perhaps the
13 contemplation process that goes into that. We all know
14 that weather prediction isn't an exact science. We're
15 talking about the type of precipitation, the amount of
16 precipitation, and in particular the timing. So can you
17 share with us some of that process, please.
18 MAJOR DEGNAN: Yes, sir.
19 It's basically we work in cooperation with PEMA
20 and PennDOT. We use the best available forecasts that are
21 available to us. We try to do it with as least impact on
22 that trucking industry as possible.
23 It is something that is really not new, the
24 commercial vehicle restrictions. We have had them for
25 decades, all the way back into the Valentine's Day 76
1 snowstorm, for an example. What we have done is taken a
2 look at highway safety and what happens during these
3 events, these massive crashes, these massive backlogs, and
4 tried to be a little more proactive, putting these
5 prohibitions in place earlier than traditionally what we
6 have seen as later, after the event has already taken
7 place.
8 It is a process in motion. We're refining it as
9 we go forward with those entities of PEMA and PennDOT. The
10 primary focus, again, is to make it as safe as we can on
11 the highways during these weather events.
12 REPRESENTATIVE FRITZ: So I can certainly
13 understand and appreciate that premise, but I'll give you
14 an example.
15 Let's say we have a vehicle ban that goes into
16 place at 10 o'clock, but the storm does not begin to
17 manifest until early afternoon. So that segment of time in
18 which the ban goes into place to where we actually begin to
19 have some precipitation that would hinder travel, people
20 are getting pulled over. So it begs the question, is there
21 any consideration for suspension of deployment?
22 MAJOR DEGNAN: Again, it's a work in progress,
23 for lack of a better answer. But we do have to look at not
24 only -- and I know you're familiar with the northeast
25 region, the 84, the 81 Corridor and everything, but we have 77
1 to take a hard look downstream, if you will, what's feeding
2 that. Is that traffic coming in from the south or from the
3 west, and it does no good to have the prohibition come into
4 place and suddenly have a logjam of commercial vehicles, if
5 you will, right in Lackawanna or Wayne County.
6 Again, we're focusing on making this better and
7 least impactive towards that industry, but it is going to
8 be a work in progress.
9 REPRESENTATIVE FRITZ: Is there any particular
10 criteria that goes into consideration to determine whether
11 it's a full commercial ban or just an empty-trailer ban?
12 MAJOR DEGNAN: I think more than anything, it's
13 driven by the prediction on the weather event itself.
14 REPRESENTATIVE FRITZ: Okay. Thank you. No
15 further questions.
16 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Thank you,
17 Representative.
18 Next will be Representative Flynn.
19 REPRESENTATIVE FLYNN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
20 My question is to revisit Representative White's
21 question about ICE, and I was curious as to whether, is
22 there anything in our ICE policy that prohibits a Trooper
23 to let ICE know where an individual that has an
24 administrative detainer is residing so that ICE can follow
25 up on their own? 78
1 MAJOR DEGNAN: No, sir. And thank you for
2 bringing that back up.
3 There is nothing in that regulation that
4 prohibits any interaction with that Trooper and ICE as far
5 as transmitting information to or from.
6 REPRESENTATIVE FLYNN: I know there's a little
7 bit of a mix up there. So a Trooper isn't going to sit
8 there and wait on the side of the road with somebody who
9 has an ICE detainer, but it's not, it's not prohibiting
10 them from letting ICE know that somebody with a detainer
11 lives at such and such address.
12 MAJOR DEGNAN: Either during the stop or even
13 afterwards, they can still reach out or we can put
14 information in to them. Sure.
15 REPRESENTATIVE FLYNN: Okay. Thanks for that
16 clarity.
17 MAJOR DEGNAN: Thank you, sir.
18 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Representative Hahn.
19 REPRESENTATIVE HAHN: Thank you, Chairman.
20 Good afternoon, and thank you for your service
21 and to all the men and women that serve with the State
22 Police. We appreciate that.
23 I have a question on games of skill. They're
24 showing up in a lot of establishments, a lot of the clubs
25 in the area. In my district, they're asking if they're 79
1 legal.
2 So when Secretary Hassell from Revenue was here,
3 I asked his opinion of those, and he testified that the
4 games of skill are not legal in Pennsylvania and that was
5 the same opinion of the State Police. So can you either
6 confirm or deny that and tell me what you're doing when
7 you see these games of skill showing up in establishments.
8 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: First of all, that
9 is our concern as well. We're seeing them everywhere.
10 They' re showing up in mom-and-pop little stores, groceries,
11 malls. And it's our opinion that they are illegal. There
12 is a current court case challenge going on right now to get
13 clarification on that.
14 Do you want to follow up a little further?
15 MAJOR DEGNAN: Ma'am, what the Colonel referenced
16 is a declaratory judgment.
17 One of the things that---
18 REPRESENTATIVE HAHN: But that's just in one
19 county, though, correct?
20 MAJOR DEGNAN: No, ma'am. It's before the
21 Commonwealth Court.
22 REPRESENTATIVE HAHN: Okay; okay.
23 MAJOR DEGNAN: And the reason for that is because
24 we have seen differing opinions county by county on these
25 machines as we have tried to enact enforcement. So this 80
1 move, in cooperation with the Attorney General, Revenue,
2 would be an all-encompassing across the Commonwealth
3 position on these devices.
4 REPRESENTATIVE HAHN: And is it going to make a
5 difference whether they' re in an establishment that has a
6 liquor license or the mom-and-pop gas station on the
7 corner? Is there a difference in the way that's enforced?
8 MAJOR DEGNAN: These would be to declare them an
9 illegal per se device, which would make them illegal in all
10 those entities.
11 REPRESENTATIVE HAHN: Okay. Thank you.
12 MAJOR DEGNAN: Okay?
13 REPRESENTATIVE HAHN: I'm going to switch gears
14 now.
15 In a prior budget session, we had noticed that
16 you had an appropriation request for $6 million for the
17 body cameras for the officers, and there was a pilot
18 program. So can you tell me -- when I was looking through
19 the information you had given us, I didn't notice a request
20 in this budget package. So can you tell me the status of
21 that pilot program and how many officers were in that
22 program, and how many, like, what areas were they in.
23 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: We did a pilot
24 program, and we conducted it at three different stations, a
25 medium, small, and large station. I believe we had about 81
1 33 cameras or so involved in that pilot study. That ended
2 around December of 2018. We're looking at the data that we
3 got from there to see if we need to improve upon our policy
4 and how we need to build that out further.
5 Unfortunately, at the same time, we have an MVR
6 program and a mobile office program that needs to be
7 re-updated as well. And part of what we're looking at is
8 combining all three of these -- the body-worn camera, the
9 mobile video recorder, as well as the mobile office -- into
10 a one type of thing called an Echo system, where all of the
11 infrastructure and technology would be able to support all
12 of these things.
13 We had carved out $6 million last year out of our
14 budget for the body-worn camera. We did not utilize any of
15 that money at this point in time. However, looking at
16 projected costs, the first-year cost for the body-worn
17 camera and the MVR and the other program would be about
18 $19 million for the first year; again, about $19 million
19 for the second year; and about $2 million or a little more
20 than $2 million per each years 3 through 10. We believe
21 the equipment in the program would run for a 10-year period
22 before it would need to be replaced.
23 So at about the 5-year pin, it would probably be
24 about a $47 million budget need that we would have to
25 implement all three of these. 82
1 REPRESENTATIVE HAHN: Okay. So the pilot program
2 has ended. Now we're looking to see to implement them with
3 everything else.
4 And does that include the dashboard cameras? Is
5 there going to be a difference between the body-worn camera
6 and the dashboard? Are they going to have, you know, will
7 one car, one cruiser, have the camera?
8 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: No. Both will —
9 we'll have both a camera in every car as well as a member
10 will have a body camera on them as well.
11 We feel a need to continue with the MVR program
12 in some counties. If you do not have the MVR of a DUI
13 arrest, they will not accept it. So there is a critical
14 part of maintaining the MVR program as well.
15 REPRESENTATIVE HAHN: Through all the Troops---
16 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: Yes.
17 REPRESENTATIVE HAHN: -- across the State.
18 Okay. Thank you.
19 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
20 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Thank you.
21 Next will be Representative McCarter.
22 REPRESENTATIVE McCARTER: Thank you,
23 Mr. Chairman, and thank you all for being here today.
24 If we can spin back to some questions dealing
25 with opioids and overdoses for a few seconds. 83
1 Let me kind of give you a scenario, because this
2 is one that came to me on Friday in my office.
3 A call is put in for 911. The EMTs come, the
4 police come, and the individual is found to be in need and
5 taken to the hospital for a potential overdose.
6 Information and paraphernalia and actual heroin is found in
7 the room where the individual was, indicating the overdose.
8 The individual goes to the hospital. What is the
9 procedure that the State Police use in terms of
10 accompanying that individual to the hospital if in fact it
11 looks as if a criminal case has been possibly there with
12 the use of heroin at that point?
13 And let me finish out the scenario, I guess
14 easier, so you know where this is going.
15 At the hospital, the individual, having been
16 given, apparently, Narcan, now is conscious and makes a
17 decision, since they are over 18 years of age, that they
18 don't need any treatment; they're fine; they can walk out
19 the door. They do, since there was no police accompanying
20 the individual there that would say that in fact this is a
21 criminal matter and the person has to be held at least
22 initially here.
23 That individual then leaves the hospital, 11 days
24 later overdoses again, and dies, even though there was a
25 treatment facility available for them to go to that their 84
1 parents had arranged at the time. And if in fact they had
2 been held at the hospital for more than 20 minutes, which
3 is literally what they were held for, is 20 minutes before
4 they were released, this individual could probably still be
5 alive today.
6 And I'm just curious in a sense of what the
7 State Police do in those scenarios where they' re called and
8 they're the individuals involved in that scenario.
9 MAJOR DEGNAN: It's difficult to quantify an
10 answer to that without having a little more information as
11 to what was going on exactly, so I apologize.
12 But upon a Trooper responding to that scene, he
13 should have been taking the evidence that is present. As
14 you said, there was some heroin, some paraphernalia, and
15 taking possession of that in furtherance of an arrest for
16 the possession of that.
17 As far as the person being removed from the scene
18 by the ambulance in advance, very honestly, it may have
19 been just a situation where that Trooper wasn't even done
20 at the scene yet before he was signed out. I see what
21 you're getting at. It is a problem. In a perfect world,
22 we would like to send a Trooper right to that hospital, do
23 an interview at least, try to find out the source.
24 Again, without having the exact parameters of
25 what happened that day, I can't give you any more detailed 85
1 answer.
2 REPRESENTATIVE McCARTER: No, and I understand
3 that.
4 What I'm getting to is that in many of these
5 cases, it now seems that it's not legislative intent that
6 we need to have here; it's procedural intent that takes
7 place between either the local police force or in fact the
8 State Troopers if they happen to be the administrative body
9 in effect in that area.
10 But in these circumstances, we don't treat this,
11 you know, we don't treat this as a disease. We -- do you
12 understand where I'm going here? There's a disease part
13 and there's in fact a criminal act, and potentially here as
14 well. And in those cases where it's clear that in fact it
15 was the use of heroin, or best case, best case, if that
16 were the case, it would seem to me that there would have to
17 be procedures in place at the hospital as well that have to
18 protect these individuals in a sense from themselves and
19 not simply because now we have Narcan, people are revived,
20 and they make a decision based upon that while they're
21 still filled with drugs and not able to make conscious
22 decisions.
23 My God, when I go in for a colonoscopy, I'm not
24 allowed to drive my car. I'm not allowed to make decisions
25 on any financial matter. But here I am, able to check 86
1 myself out of a hospital, if that be the case, having just
2 taken a massive overdose of drugs. That doesn't seem to be
3 realistic in terms of where we're going to go if we're
4 going to overcome the opioid crisis.
5 So, you know, I'm asking the State Police to
6 think about this as well, as to what procedures we may be
7 able to come up with on that.
8 Let me spin very, very quickly to one other
9 issue.
10 In the PICS system, once people are identified as
11 having been rejected, and I believe there's approximately
12 11,000 people who were rejected for the purchase of weapons
13 last year after, in fact, second chances and so forth and
14 going back through the system. What happens to those names
15 of individuals who are rejected? Is that maintained by the
16 State Police?
17 MAJOR PRICE: Yes, sir. Per legislation, we
18 don't retain any information on approvals, but denials are
19 maintained in the system.
20 REPRESENTATIVE McCARTER: They are. And then
21 that would be going on the list for the next time around?
22 If somebody applies, that would be checked as well?
23 MAJOR PRICE: Yes, sir.
24 REPRESENTATIVE McCARTER: Okay. Thank you very
25 much. 87
1 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Thank you.
2 Next will be Representative Delozier.
3 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Thank you,
4 Mr. Chairman.
5 Thank you all for being here and answering
6 questions.
7 I wanted to follow up a little bit about what my
8 colleague had asked about, was the contract that's being
9 put out for the dash cams and the mobile offices and that
10 type of thing.
11 My understanding was that it's a mobile dash
12 camera, the body cameras, the laptop computers, and the
13 mobile office system in the cars, is all encompassed in
14 this proposed contract. Is that correct?
15 MAJOR HOKE: That's correct, Representative.
16 Yes.
17 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay. Do all of those,
18 is there a system out there where all of those can talk to
19 each other?
20 MAJOR HOKE: We are currently in the process of
21 putting together what we refer to as an "RFP, " a request
22 for product---
23 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay.
24 MAJOR HOKE: -- to do exactly that. Both the MVR
25 and the mobile office computer are at end of life. They 88
1 are coming -- we have had those systems in our patrol
2 vehicles probably the last 7 to 8 years, some of them
3 approaching 9 years.
4 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay.
5 MAJOR HOKE: Although they're holding up well,
6 the technology life span, because of the environment that
7 they're in, they're in a patrol vehicle being bounced
8 around--
9 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Sure. Outside and
10 everything.
11 MAJOR HOKE: -- it's time to replace those
12 devices.
13 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: But is there an
14 integrated system right now that you know of that all three
15 -- and then what I'm trying to get at is, we had a big
16 issue with the radio system not talking to each other and
17 millions and millions of dollars going in. And I know you
18 estimated the cost, the 19, 19, and 2 for the rest.
19 But the ability, I don't know of a system, and
20 when I talk to folks, they don't know of a system that can
21 do all of that together. That's what my concern is.
22 MAJOR HOKE: We are optimistic that by putting
23 this RFP out there to request from the IT community, that
24 they can resolve those issues for us---
25 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay. 89
1 MAJOR HOKE: ---and can present us with a package
2 that we can avoid all those pitfalls.
3 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay.
4 And the cities that have had different types of
5 systems, not only the car system but also the body cam,
6 have they integrated those systems that they can talk to
7 each other, like the Philly and the Pittsburghs and the
8 Harrisburgs that have body cam with their car? Do they
9 interact that you're aware of?
10 MAJOR HOKE: I'm not familiar with what other
11 departments are utilizing at this point. But one of
12 the--
13 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: So you haven't spoken
14 to anybody that has done this before you?
15 MAJOR HOKE: One of the requirements that we put
16 forth in this RFP is to have that ability to integrate, and
17 the reason that we want that is because it will cut down on
18 the back end of the system, if you will, the number of
19 devices that need to be in place so that they're compatible
20 with one another---
21 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Right.
22 MAJOR HOKE: ---we're not operating different
23 systems.
24 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay. But you haven't
25 had that conversation necessarily. 90
1 Just a comment. I don't know if other States
2 have done it. Have you found out if other States have done
3 something like this, if no cities have done this? So I'm
4 looking for not to re-create the wheel, I guess.
5 MAJOR HOKE: Correct. And we are--
6 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: At the taxpayers'
7 expense.
8 MAJOR HOKE: Representative, we are looking to
9 avoid any of those potential pitfalls that we're speaking
10 to here today.
11 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay.
12 MAJOR HOKE: We don't want the interference
13 issues.
14 Once you introduce all of this technology into
15 the confines of that vehicle, sometimes they don't play
16 well with one another, for lack of a better term.
17 And with that understanding is, the purpose of
18 the RFP is to put what we want out there and let somebody
19 in the IT world come up with a concept that we would test,
20 and once we're satisfied that that would be appropriate for
21 our needs, it would be something that we could pursue at
22 that point.
23 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay. And so,
24 basically, this contract is not looking to go into place.
25 You were talking about the years and everything else. Two 91
1 questions along with that.
2 There is no budget for this in your budget, and
3 19 million per year, even for the first 2 years, is quite a
4 chunk of change. So where does that come from?
5 MAJOR HOKE: That money would have to be found
6 internally within the agency.
7 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: So since you're still
8 looking at the information that you're talking about of
9 them developing this all-encompassing system, I'm not
10 imagining this is happening anytime soon.
11 MAJOR HOKE: No. The RFP is just about ready for
12 publication. It should be going out within the next month.
13 And one of the requirements that we have tasked our folks
14 with with creating that RFP is to bid it in sections. In
15 other words, the mobile office and the MVR dash cam are an
16 absolute.
17 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay.
18 MAJOR HOKE: The body cam must be able to be
19 integrated, but we want to see what price structure those
20 vendors have to offer.
21 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay.
22 Moving on, I have two other issues that I quickly
23 want to hit on.
24 One, I'm not expecting you to have the whole
25 list, but one of my issues that you mentioned in your 92
1 presentation dealing with MPOETC and the $5 million from
2 the motor licensing fund that goes back out to municipal
3 training to reimburse our municipals. Is there a way we
4 can get a list as to how that was disbursed?
5 It was mentioned that you had a lapse, and then
6 for the next 2 years you expect to spend the full
7 5 million. Is there a way to find out what municipalities
8 were reimbursed for that with those dollars?
9 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: Yeah. I don't
10 think we have that readily available.
11 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: And that's fine. I
12 didn't expect you to necessarily rattle it off.
13 And then my last question before I run out of
14 time is the big issue of human trafficking and obviously
15 the issue that we deal with here. We are a Keystone State.
16 We have a lot of traffic coming through our State that does
17 not stop or does stop in certain areas of truck stops and
18 that type of thing.
19 It's a battle that we have fought, and there's a
20 lot of pieces of legislation that are out there on this
21 issue. If you could just kind of fill us in from the PSP
22 perspective as to different things that you have been
23 working on to try and combat this huge issue. Obviously
24 you see end to end in our State and everywhere in between,
25 and I'm sure this is an issue that is on your radar. 93
1 MAJOR DEGNAN: Yes. The crimes associated with
2 human trafficking are very much on our radar, ma'am.
3 We work in a continuous cooperative effort with
4 Federal agencies and local law enforcement. We have had
5 training modules where we have pushed out to our people
6 specific to this crime. We have interdiction teams out
7 there that are specifically trained to look for these type
8 of criminal activities. We're very aggressive with it.
9 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay.
10 MAJOR DEGNAN: And--
11 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: And I didn't expect any
12 less. But I simply would just say that it's an issue that
13 we have been fighting for for many, many years, and the
14 more recognition and the more awareness of it, the better
15 that I think the State will be.
16 Thank you.
17 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Thank you,
18 Representative.
19 A brief follow-up.
20 I had heard someone mention 19 million,
21 19 million, $2 million, potential costs, but the RFP hasn't
22 even gone out yet, so that is just an estimate then?
23 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: That's an
24 estimate.
25 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Okay. Very good. Thank 94
1 you.
2 Next will be Representative Cephas.
3 REPRESENTATIVE CEPHAS: Thank you.
4 And thank you for your testimony today.
5 So with being a newer Member to this Committee,
6 it gives, you know, me an opportunity to learn more and
7 more of what each of our departments do. And as I sit here
8 and listen to this series of questions that are being
9 asked, I mean, you guys are dealing from the opioid crisis
10 to traffic stops, domestic violence, human trafficking. I
11 want to hear about, how does the department manage the
12 mental health of our officers prior to when they enter into
13 the force, during their time on the force.
14 Just because of the laundry list of things that
15 you guys are dealing with across the Commonwealth, we need
16 to make sure that the mental health of our officers is
17 there, because when we talk about post-traumatic stress
18 syndrome, again, given the issues that you deal with and
19 the challenges, I just want to hear from, how do you
20 support your officers in that way?
21 MAJOR PRICE: Thanks, ma'am.
22 So we have something -- well, it's twofold. We
23 have the Member Assistance Program, colloquially referred
24 to as MAP. It's our analog to the State Employee
25 Assistance Program. 95
1 Our MAP program essentially provides support for
2 all of our members. We have a coordinator. We have four
3 full-time MAP personnel. And then we have essentially
4 folks who perform a secondary role in our Member Assistance
5 Program in concert with, in our Bureau of Integrity and
6 Professional Standards, we have a risk management entity.
7 A risk management entity monitors officer performance,
8 officer behavior, looks at things like, you know, use of
9 force, potential problems with something as simple as
10 report writing that could potentially signal a problem,
11 that the officer is having a problem over and above just
12 the actual, the actual implementation of writing a report
13 itself, let's say. And those individuals can be placed on
14 a program whereupon their performance is monitored more
15 closely, whereupon we engage the services of our Member
16 Assistance Program.
17 Our Member Assistance Program folks would then
18 follow up from that aspect. They have psychologists that
19 they work regularly with. It's actually one of the more
20 robust programs in the nation, and I think we're rightfully
21 proud of it because we have had good success.
22 For example, they may respond to critical
23 incidents: anytime there would be an incident involving
24 the death of a child that has a particular impact; some sex
25 crimes that may have a particular emotional impact. And 96
1 those are the things we do with folks after they are hired.
2 Of course, we do psychological screening through our cadet
3 screening process, if you will, to make sure that folks are
4 mentally able to handle the demands of the job, but then we
5 support them throughout their career thereafter.
6 REPRESENTATIVE CEPHAS: As a follow-up, do you do
7 any additional psychological screening while they're hired?
8 MAJOR PRICE: Not generally, not as a routine
9 thing. If an individual appears to be in distress, there
10 are certain circumstances where we can, working with human
11 resources, order independent psychological exams. They are
12 generally rare, and they would be in extreme circumstances.
13 REPRESENTATIVE CEPHAS: Okay. Thank you so much.
14 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Thank you.
15 Next will be Representative Heffley.
16 REPRESENTATIVE HEFFLEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman,
17 and I just want to thank the Pennsylvania State Police for
18 being here today and also for the wonderful job that you do
19 on our highways and the bravery of the Troopers, the
20 rank-and-file, the guys that are out there and gals that
21 are out there every day making traffic stops and putting
22 their lives on the line to protect us. So I would want to
23 make sure that we always acknowledge their service and
24 sacrifice.
25 With that line of questioning, I know there was a 97
1 lot of talk about additional fees or taxes on certain
2 communities. Right now, is it true that approximately
3 70 percent of the State Police funding comes out of the
4 Motor License Fund right now?
5 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: That's correct.
6 REPRESENTATIVE HEFFLEY: And that's paid by
7 everybody across the State. And you can actually say that
8 there are a lot of folks that live in the urban areas that
9 don't have local police. Because they're traveling farther
10 to work and they don't have the option to use a lot of the
11 transit systems that folks in urban areas, that they' re
12 probably paying a higher -- they' re using more gas,
13 therefore paying a higher percentage of that Motor License
14 Fund. I mean, I would run the numbers on that, but I think
15 that's a safe assumption to make.
16 So I think that as we look at, and because
17 Pennsylvania State Police cover all areas of the State, I
18 think it would be burdensome to just target certain people
19 to have to pay extra fees. But I would certainly want to
20 make sure that the State Police are adequately funded.
21 Back to the other line of questioning that I had,
22 and it comes to public relations with the State Police.
23 And we said earlier that it's a work in progress with PEMA
24 and shutting down the roads. Pennsylvania is a Keystone
25 State. Speaking as somebody that has driven many hundreds 98
1 of miles across the State in rigs in all kinds of
2 snowstorms, I can tell you that the professional drivers
3 that are out there do a great job, and commerce has to keep
4 going. Cows need to get milked every day, twice a day,
5 whether it's snowing, sleeting, or raining. Manufacturing
6 facilities need their deliveries. Water treatment
7 facilities must have their deliveries daily or people don't
8 have clean water. Power plants need their supplies
9 delivered. And I think it's -- I would really question and
10 have to reexamine why we're shutting down highways in
11 Pennsylvania.
12 In Georgia, if we get a half an inch of snow or a
13 couple of snow flurries, maybe down there they want to shut
14 their roads down. But across the State of Pennsylvania, I
15 think this is a huge burden on commerce. And quite
16 honestly, pulling drivers over, what was the fine that we
17 were assessing these individuals that were trying to just
18 get home? How much were we assessing them?
19 MAJOR DEGNAN: $300.
20 REPRESENTATIVE HEFFLEY: $300, plus the lost
21 wages for that day, plus, you know, the trucks sitting
22 along the road maybe.
23 And with the new hours of service, which can be
24 very strenuous on commerce as well, it just really put a
25 burden on -- and the reason I'm stating this is because I 99
1 heard it from many companies. I mean, they had their
2 drivers dispatched at 6 p.m. at night for their loads the
3 next day and ready to haul, and some haul actually road
4 salt which is needed during a snowstorm, and then, you
5 know, a couple hours later they just come out with an edict
6 and shut the highways down.
7 So I think there is really poor communication. I
8 would really reexamine that, because it is really going to
9 hurt commerce across the State. And to punish guys and
10 gals for just going out there trying to do their job just
11 doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
12 Back to an earlier line of questioning and back
13 with the rank-and-file officers doing just an awesome job,
14 and a question I heard earlier, I was a little bit
15 concerned about the answers. Why would there be a
16 liability for holding someone that the Federal Government
17 has an administrative warrant on? I mean, obviously we're
18 in the middle of a heroin epidemic and fentanyl epidemic.
19 We now rank as the highest State in the nation for overdose
20 deaths, and that's because the heroin and fentanyl in
21 Pennsylvania is the most pure and the cheapest on the
22 streets.
23 And a lot of that illegal drug activity is run
24 through illegals in communities, unfortunately really
25 exploiting the folks in those communities. But well 100
1 stated, it is run by the Mexican drug cartels. Why would
2 we not want to be better partners in working with our
3 Federal agencies to try to crack down on those folks that
4 are in our community illegally?
5 MAJOR DEGNAN: Again, the difference being
6 criminal warrant and civil warrant, or administrative
7 warrant being a civil warrant. We--
8 REPRESENTATIVE HEFFLEY: And that was brought
9 about by counsel, so that was an opinion that somebody
10 made. But, I mean, isn't it better to err on the side of
11 caution and keep our streets safe?
12 MAJOR DEGNAN: I would agree to you, but again,
13 there's no communication piece that has been impacted with
14 us directly talking to ICE or ICE communicating back to us.
15 REPRESENTATIVE HEFFLEY: Yeah. But if you're
16 going to say---
17 MAJOR DEGNAN: Well--
18 REPRESENTATIVE HEFFLEY: Just earlier in the line
19 of testimony somebody had said that you're going to turn
20 over the address where somebody that's here illegally
21 lives. How do we know they live there if they're here
22 illegally already so they can go get them later? If we
23 have somebody in custody, why wouldn't we hold them for the
24 Federal Government to then make their assessment and get
25 these bad actors out of our communities? 101
1 MAJOR DEGNAN: In short, ICE cannot give us a
2 definition on what criteria exactly establishes that
3 administrative warrant. In meetings with them, we have
4 been told it could be an overstay of a day, a mistake on
5 the paperwork. And again, it doesn't impact what we do on
6 that stop or that investigation.
7 REPRESENTATIVE HEFFLEY: Yeah. But if you
8 already have somebody stopped, then we're going to let
9 them go because somebody in the counsel's office at the
10 State Police is prohibiting our law enforcement and tying
11 their hands. I don't want the ACLU writing policy. I
12 mean, they serve a purpose, but I think when it comes to
13 keeping our streets safe, I want to give you the tools that
14 you need to keep them safe. And I see my red light is up,
15 so I will stop speaking, Mr. Chairman.
16 REPRESENTATIVE DUNBAR: Thank you,
17 Representative.
18 Next will be Representative Sanchez.
19 REPRESENTATIVE SANCHEZ: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
20 Lieutenant Colonel and the command staff,
21 welcome. Thank you for being here today.
22 I wanted to circle back for a moment to discuss
23 the PICS, or the Pennsylvania Instant Check System, a
24 little bit further. I wanted to applaud and also give you
25 the opportunity to expand on it a little bit. 102
1 But in your statement, I noticed that you comment
2 the system, in 2018, the PICS system, handled over
3 1 million Interactive Voice Response System, IVR, and Web
4 background checks. The system downtime was, again, limited
5 to less than 1 percent. There were 11,127 PICS background
6 denials reported. In addition, 162 fugitives were
7 identified and apprehended through the background check
8 process because of the discovery of outstanding warrants
9 for the individual attempting to obtain a firearm or
10 license to carry.
11 To me, again, I applaud the robust program. It
12 sounds like something that, you know, I wish and one can
13 only hope you are empowered to expand that and take it
14 further to all firearms sales. Perhaps that will happen
15 someday.
16 But traditionally, the system has been funded
17 from a mix of fee revenue. I know Representative Schweyer
18 touched on it earlier with the $5 fee not entirely covering
19 the cost of the background check. But I wanted to hear
20 from you gentlemen, what would be the best way to fund that
21 system?
22 MAJOR PRICE: Well, sir, you know, in some of
23 these funding decisions, we always differ to the good
24 judgment of the Legislature. Having said that, PICS is
25 currently funded from three sources. It's general 103
1 governmental operations, the actual PICS check fees, and
2 then a gun-check appropriation, which this year I believe
3 the gun-check appropriation requested was 4.4 million.
4 PICS costs a total of between $6 and $8 million per year to
5 operate.
6 Now, it's hard to estimate, because the 1 million
7 transactions that you mentioned, about 300,000 to 350,000
8 of those are actually performed for the sheriffs' offices
9 to do license-to-carry checks. So there is some
10 legislatively mandated fee we get back from those. But of
11 those, about 700,000 are actually performed for firearms
12 purchase decisions. So those are the ones that are really,
13 they are end-user fees, those 700,000. And we can't
14 estimate the volume of firearms transactions.
15 Now, we have generally seen a lineal increase
16 year to year. After Sandy Hook, there was a significant
17 spike. The presumption was that that would potentially
18 fall down to a lineal increase, but in fact it plateaued.
19 So we have been relatively consistent in the sense that
20 there have been about 700,000 to 750,000 gun transfers per
21 year, onto which those fees, that $2 or $5 fee, would be
22 assessed, but we don't know. If gun sales go up, we
23 generate more in the actual gun checks. If gun sales go
24 down, we generate less.
25 But it would be our position that the viability 104
1 and the valuableness of PICS is such that potentially
2 increasing the cost of the PICS check to that recommended
3 by the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee, which does
4 an evaluation every 5 years because the Legislature was
5 prescient in including that to say that LBFC has to do an
6 evaluation every 5 years. And the actual title of the
7 evaluation is to determine the adequacy of PICS fees. That
8 suggests that there was legislative intent at that time to
9 ensure that the PICS fees were adequate to support the
10 operation.
11 So we would suggest that that is a viable
12 consideration and something that we would leave to the good
13 judgment of the Legislature to consider.
14 REPRESENTATIVE SANCHEZ: Thank you, sir.
15 And just to follow up on that. Given the ebb and
16 flow of gun sales, if background checks were expanded
17 further, is there still capacity in the system to handle
18 that, or would that be the actual, you know, technical
19 system, not the financing? Would that be viable, or would
20 that require further expansion?
21 MAJOR PRICE: It's an interesting question,
22 because we don't know what we don't know. We can't -- it's
23 very difficult to estimate the number of person-to-person
24 private transactions not subject to a PICS check at this
25 moment in time. 105
1 We have done a lot of extrapolations and looked
2 at permutations and combinations, and ultimately where we
3 come out is, we could see 40,000 more PICS checks per year
4 or we could see 100,000. But if you look at the number of
5 PICS checks, PICS really hasn't expanded in terms of our
6 staffing since 1998 when we did 200,000 checks per year,
7 and now we're doing a million checks per year.
8 The systems, the technology systems, they can
9 support it, but we would like to maintain our current level
10 of customer service. So it remains to be seen whether we
11 would be able to adequately staff or whether we would have
12 to look at potentially moving staff to bolster our numbers.
13 REPRESENTATIVE SANCHEZ: Thank you again, sir.
14 I see my time has expired. Thank you,
15 Mr. Chairman.
16 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative Grove.
17 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Thank you, Chairman.
18 Gentlemen, good morning. How are you?
19 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: Good morning.
20 Good.
21 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Better in a few hours when
22 this is over?
23 First I want to start off with the technological
24 ecosystem. You had mentioned your current estimate is
25 about 19 million and you're going to fund that internally. 106
1 Is there a break-even point? If the RFP comes back at
2 $25 million, it's a nonstarter? 50 million? What's your
3 drop-dead cost of that?
4 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: I don't know if we
5 have a drop-dead, but we would probably have to look at, do
6 we do all three components then or do we have to split one
7 or two of them out, so.
8 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Okay. And that may be a
9 good idea moving forward. I look at all these IT projects
10 we do. When we go big, it tends to not work. I look at
11 the radio system. I look at the UC system. Every time we
12 go big on an IT project, it never works out in the long run
13 and it's over budget, over time, and we just keep throwing
14 money at it.
15 I would maybe pull that back and do an RFI on the
16 component pieces and build based on the component pieces,
17 because your priority may be your technology in the car.
18 The camera is a side technology. Get that up and running
19 rather than doing the whole thing at one time. That's just
20 my assessment of looking at IT moving forward.
21 What's your gentleman's definition of a sanctuary
22 city?
23 MAJOR PRICE: I think I would say one in which
24 there are -- there are some States, there are some cities
25 that have policies that they are not allowed to interact 107
1 with ICE in any fashion.
2 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: All right. So based on
3 that, do you describe us now as a sanctuary state?
4 MAJOR PRICE: No.
5 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: No. So the limiting is,
6 you can interact, correct? It's just, you're not going to
7 hold. Is that a fair assessment?
8 MAJOR PRICE: Yes, sir. I think that's a fair
9 assessment.
10 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Okay.
11 How is your current process on a traffic stop and
12 the driver doesn't have a driver's license?
13 MAJOR PRICE: So that's delineated in the policy
14 fairly well. The operator would be able to, or the Trooper
15 would access any available resources, including ICE
16 databases, to determine the identity of the driver.
17 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: And it is impossible for
18 an illegal alien to get a driver's license in the
19 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, correct?
20 MAJOR PRICE: Yes.
21 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: So if you're pulled over
22 and you do not have a driver's license, would it be an
23 assessment to interface with ICE to see if there is a
24 detainer or there is a warrant for that individual?
25 MAJOR PRICE: Yeah, because the potential exists 108
1 that there would be a criminal warrant for the individual.
2 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Okay. So you're driving.
3 You don't have a driver's license. Is that individual
4 normally held by the State Police, or how does that
5 individual end up getting home or do you take them back to
6 the station? Leave the car beside the road?
7 MAJOR PRICE: That largely depends upon the
8 circumstances. There are situations we can't allow the
9 individual to drive, so the individual may be transported
10 back to the station to obtain transportation. In some
11 situations, we might tow the vehicle if it's in a hazardous
12 location. So that's pretty fact specific. But generally,
13 yes, the individual would not be allowed to drive from the
14 scene.
15 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Okay.
16 In developing this policy, did you talk to the
17 U.S. Department of Justice about it? Did they have
18 concerns, and at any point, are you jeopardizing your
19 Federal dollars coming to the State Police?
20 MAJOR PRICE: No, sir. As I said before, the two
21 things that were persuasive, the two things that we looked
22 at in developing the policy to ensure we were in compliance
23 is the United States v. Arizona and 8 U.S.C. 1373.
24 Some States and some cities that are by the
25 definition I had indicated deemed to be sanctuary, they 109
1 knowingly and overtly violate 8 U.S.C. 1373. They simply
2 will not provide information to ICE and they will not
3 interact with ICE in any fashion. And so one of the
4 criteria when we developed policy was to be certain that we
5 were not violative of Federal law and that we do maintain
6 communications with ICE.
7 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Okay. Because I worry; I
8 don't want Interpol to have a detainer on a murder that's
9 in our jurisdiction and we do not turn that individual
10 over. I don't think we want to see violent criminals just
11 caught and released, correct?
12 MAJOR PRICE: That's correct.
13 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Okay. That's all I have.
14 Thank you.
15 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative Gabler.
16 REPRESENTATIVE GABLER: Good morning, gentlemen,
17 and thank you very much. It's really a pleasure to hear
18 from you this morning.
19 I wanted to follow up with one quick alibi on the
20 last topic regarding the ecosystem, the technological
21 ecosystem, the RFP. Does your RFP account for the ability
22 to upgrade and stay modern with that equipment as it goes?
23 A concern that I would have is if you're looking at
24 assembling some sort of a proprietary technology system
25 that is kind of a reinvented wheel, so to speak, does your 110
1 RFP account for how easy it will be in future years to
2 upgrade and maintain that equipment so that it stays
3 current and is able to continue operational for some period
4 of time?
5 MAJOR HOKE: Representative, we place the
6 life span of that equipment at approximately 8 to 10 years.
7 So we look to the future with that regard when we bid these
8 projects out.
9 One of the other things that we want to look to
10 also is the scalability of the -- if we can't do it all in
11 one fiscal year, then we want to look to maybe overlap it.
12 The service network is a huge aspect of this as well. We
13 put mobile office computers and MVRs into 1600 patrol
14 vehicles across the Commonwealth. So it's a significant
15 investment, but above and beyond that, it's a significant
16 infrastructure, if you will, to maintain as well.
17 REPRESENTATIVE GABLER: Mm-hmm.
18 MAJOR HOKE: So to answer your question, yes, we
19 do take those types of things into consideration when we
20 look to this.
21 REPRESENTATIVE GABLER. Excellent. I appreciate
22 that, sir.
23 And then, would any proposal that you entertain
24 under that system be fully compatible with the P25 STARNet
25 system as well? Would they work together, or is that a 111
1 separate sort of system?
2 MAJOR HOKE: There's actually a requirement that
3 it cannot interfere with the P25 system.
4 REPRESENTATIVE GABLER: Cannot interfere. Okay.
5 MAJOR HOKE: Exactly.
6 The compatibility issue, there would not be one
7 there as far as it integrating into it, you know, to
8 communicate. The radio would be separate, if you will,
9 from the data transmission.
10 REPRESENTATIVE GABLER: Okay. Thank you very
11 much.
12 Shifting gears real quick, I wanted to go, and we
13 have had some conversation about PICS. And I'm a military
14 guy, but sometimes I know acronyms get thrown here or
15 there, so the Pennsylvania Instant Check System, the
16 background check that we use for firearms transactions.
17 In your testimony, as was noted by one of the
18 prior members, you note your system downtime was limited to
19 less than 1 percent. Can you give us a little background
20 on how you calculate that percentage?
21 MAJOR PRICE: Yes, sir. Sure.
22 So by legislative mandate, PICS has to be
23 available at 8 in the morning until 10 at night, 365 days a
24 year. In fact, we open earlier. If we know there's going
25 to be a large gun sale or Black Friday, we actually open 112
1 earlier so that the gun dealers can get into the system if
2 they have a 5 o'clock in the morning sale, for example.
3 But what we calculate, actually, is the total downtime, and
4 we categorize the downtime, if you will, by the nature of
5 the downtime.
6 So NICS, the National Instant Check System, PICS
7 hits NICS. That's one of the 14 databases. Well, not
8 actual databases, but that's one of the conduits that we
9 use to glean information. So if NICS is down, PICS is
10 down. And we document that as a NICS outage, because we
11 don't have control over that.
12 So for 2018, PICS was down a total of about
13 49 hours. Eleven of those were Federal related. Now,
14 those numbers are both down from the previous year when the
15 NICS system had some transition issues and they were down a
16 significant amount of time. But of those 49, 11 were
17 federally related.
18 State related were actually 16 hours, and if you
19 look at when we say State related, PICS utilizes as a
20 message switch our Commonwealth Law Enforcement Assistance
21 Network, so the CLEAN network. Think about the CLEAN
22 network. That's what officers across the State rely on for
23 their information.
24 So this isn't just PICS reaching into a system.
25 This is the network that law enforcement relies on to 113
1 determine wanted persons, to run driver's licenses. That's
2 a critical system, and we need that back up as soon as
3 possible. And every effort is made to keep CLEAN from
4 going down, but if CLEAN goes down, PICS goes down.
5 So of those State-related hours, very often those
6 16 hours of downtime are CLEAN network outages and things
7 of that nature, or one of the databases was down. We
8 simply can't hit the database. And then miscellaneous,
9 which could include widespread power outages, Verizon
10 outages where we have had issues with phone lines,
11 something as simple as a fire drill, but that was a total
12 of 22 hours. So we had about 49 hours total downtime in
13 2018.
14 REPRESENTATIVE GABLER: Thank you. And is that
15 Monday through Friday, 7 days a week? I think you said
16 7--
17 MAJOR PRICE: Seven days a week, 365 a year,
18 including Christmas. And yes, we do some transactions on
19 Christmas.
20 REPRESENTATIVE GABLER: Thank you very much.
21 And regarding that time, do you ever have
22 scheduled outages for maintenance?
23 MAJOR PRICE: When we have scheduled outages for
24 maintenance, because PICS closes at 10 at night, we
25 actually do them overnight. So we'll normally put in 114
1 changes, application changes, development changes. And all
2 the other systems that PICS relies upon, our technology
3 folks are aware of the criticality of the PICS application,
4 so there's a concerted effort to put changes in overnight
5 when it won't impact PICS.
6 REPRESENTATIVE GABLER: I really appreciate your
7 information here, and it does sound like your trend line is
8 going the right direction.
9 In previous years, I have had complaints from
10 constituents with the inability to proceed with
11 transactions at certain times. I have become well
12 acquainted with your leg affairs team. But it sounds like
13 your trend line is going the right way, and I encourage you
14 to keep it up.
15 And that's all I have. I appreciate it. Thank
16 you.
17 MAJOR PRICE: Thank you, sir.
18 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Chairman Rob Kauffman
19 of the Judiciary Committee.
20 REPRESENTATIVE KAUFFMAN: Thank you,
21 Mr. Chairman.
22 I certainly feel I need to start out by saying
23 that I was puzzled and dismayed at the inference that I
24 heard in this room that the great men and women of the
25 Pennsylvania State Police would somehow be involved in 115
1 rampant racial profiling or somehow be instruments of ICE
2 at the Federal level, because I for one have always known
3 the Pennsylvania State Police, the men and women who serve
4 us in our communities, as instruments of law enforcement of
5 the highest integrity and do their job to the best of their
6 ability to the tools that they are given. So I come to you
7 with that background, and thank you, gentlemen, for being
8 here.
9 I do think that you're sensing concern among
10 Members here this afternoon because what they're hearing
11 about the new policy that was rolled out by the
12 Pennsylvania State Police about 4 weeks ago, they're
13 hearing things, they're sensing that this great institution
14 of men and women who have been enforcing the law and have
15 not really been a part of political things seem to now be
16 digressing into some kind of political instrument the way
17 this policy is being rolled out, and that is, I believe,
18 the concern.
19 So I am not an attorney, and I don't think any
20 four of you are either. If I'm incorrect, I'm sorry. So
21 we're talking, you know, all the legalese, the court cases,
22 and all of that.
23 Representative Grove referred to what a sanctuary
24 city or sanctuary state is, and you, Major Price, you
25 indicated that had to do with communication. So I just 116
1 want to cut to the chase as far as what is permitted in
2 communication with ICE by the men and women of the
3 Pennsylvania State Police.
4 I guess first of all, in what circumstances
5 "shall" the men and women of the Pennsylvania State Police
6 contact ICE?
7 MAJOR PRICE: Sir, I think, again, "shall" is
8 difficult for us in terms of where our folks are engaged in
9 a traffic stop involved in everyday law enforcement. That
10 is largely a decision made by the Trooper at roadside. So
11 versus saying when they "shall," what I would rather say is
12 they are never prohibited.
13 REPRESENTATIVE KAUFFMAN: They're never
14 prohibited from contacting ICE?
15 MAJOR PRICE: ICE. Correct.
16 And again, the point is, the traffic stop or the
17 reason for the interaction isn't to be extended beyond the
18 purpose of the original stop simply based upon immigration
19 status.
20 So in the course of the traffic stop -- and we'll
21 use traffic stop because that's commonly what we're
22 thinking of here. In the course of the traffic stop, if
23 the Trooper, roadside, develops information to suggest that
24 there is criminality, then the Trooper can pursue all
25 available avenues to investigate that criminality. 117
1 I know Representative White had spoken about, you
2 know, what interaction one would have with the passengers.
3 Again, it' s a mere interaction, but we rely on the
4 investigatory skills of our Troopers. So, for example, in
5 the case of Warren Jeffs, who was a known polygamist,
6 Warren Jeffs was a passenger in the back seat of a car.
7 The police officer noticed that Warren Jeffs was eating a
8 salad and never looked up at him when the police officer
9 was on this traffic stop. Now, that's unusual. You
10 normally stop a car and someone looks up at you. In
11 addition, that police officer noted that Warren Jeffs'
12 carotid artery was pulsing. And again, people that do
13 polygraphs and interviews, that's potentially a sign of
14 stress. The blood pressure goes up, the carotid artery
15 pules. If our Trooper sees that situation, he can
16 articulate why he has to further question that passenger in
17 the vehicle. That's what we expect him to do, and there's
18 no preclusion in this policy to prevent that.
19 REPRESENTATIVE KAUFFMAN: So if in the midst of a
20 traffic stop the officer believes or suspects that someone
21 in that vehicle is an illegal immigrant, during the traffic
22 stop, before that traffic stop is released, they are
23 permitted to contact ICE in the midst of that traffic stop.
24 MAJOR PRICE: They can certainly contact ICE, but
25 they can't extend the traffic stop waiting for ICE to get 118
1 there if the only cause is immigration status.
2 REPRESENTATIVE KAUFFMAN: Okay. But they are
3 permitted to contact ICE in the midst of that traffic stop?
4 MAJOR PRICE: Yes, sir.
5 REPRESENTATIVE KAUFFMAN: Okay. All right.
6 You know, I do think you're going to continue to
7 get questions about this policy, and maybe even we may
8 invite you to come visit us at the Judiciary Committee one
9 of these days.
10 But I appreciate your candor, and we will
11 continue this discussion, because we certainly want to
12 uphold the reputation and integrity of really one of the
13 greatest law enforcement agencies in the nation, the
14 Pennsylvania State Police.
15 Thank you.
16 MAJOR PRICE: Sir, Representative Saylor, if I
17 could have 10 seconds---
18 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Sure.
19 MAJOR PRICE: ---just to address something that
20 you had said before.
21 Our chief counsel advises us, but ultimately this
22 was not political. It wasn't chief counsel telling us what
23 our policy should be. This was us speaking to the chief
24 counsel, getting their best advice, and then constructing a
25 policy from that. No one told us what the policy should 119
1 be. And I just wanted to clarify that, to say that this is
2 the point we ended up of our volition.
3 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Major, the reason I
4 have great concerns, and I think many people do, is the
5 fact is, like, we want to make sure that there is
6 cooperation among agencies. As we have seen with shootings
7 across this country, people having whether it's guns that
8 they shouldn't have, people who are committing crimes later
9 on, and we want to make sure that all agencies are working
10 together -- local, State, and Federal officials -- to make
11 sure those kinds of things don't happen here in
12 Pennsylvania.
13 I think Chairman Kauffman just really mentioned
14 it with the fact that we don't want to see what has
15 happened in other agencies across this country happen to
16 the Pennsylvania State Police, because I, as one, believe
17 you are one of the finest law enforcement agencies in the
18 world, and the last thing I want to see is your Troopers or
19 any of you gentlemen be impugned that you haven't done the
20 best to protect the citizens of Pennsylvania, because I
21 think you are the best.
22 MAJOR PRICE: Yes, sir.
23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: But I have real
24 concern here, we don't want to see your reputation
25 tarnished by anything, and that's why I think our Members 120
1 of our Committee are so concerned.
2 I think you will find both sides of the aisle
3 here in Pennsylvania, or maybe I shouldn't speak for the
4 Democrats, but I believe that we all are honored by your
5 service of your Troopers and how you have conducted
6 yourself through the many years. Very proud of you; very
7 proud of all of you. But we just don't -- you know, our
8 fiduciary responsibility is to make sure that you can carry
9 out your duties and it's not impugned, so.
10 MAJOR PRICE: Thank you.
11 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Thank you, Major, for
12 your comments. I do appreciate it.
13 With that, I'll go to Representative Sainato.
14 REPRESENTATIVE SAINATO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
15 Thank you, gentlemen, for your testimony today.
16 I think it has been very helpful to all of us.
17 As the Democratic Chairman of the House Veterans
18 Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee, it has been
19 an honor to work with each and every one of you. Myself,
20 along with Chairman Barrar, I think we have accomplished a
21 lot the last 8 years. We have a very bipartisan committee.
22 We work very well together.
23 And it has always been the cooperation, the State
24 Police has always worked very closely with our committee
25 when we deal with the crisis that happened. I mean, we're 121
1 in the midst of one right now as you sit here getting
2 reports from back in western Pennsylvania with the power
3 outages and, you know, the trees across the roads, and, you
4 know, the winds are still, I guess, howling right now as
5 we're here.
6 Do you guys have any update of what has happened
7 across the State on this?
8 MAJOR DEGNAN: Not in the past 2 hours, to give
9 you the short answer.
10 REPRESENTATIVE SAINATO: Yes.
11 MAJOR DEGNAN: We do have set up a communications
12 system where we have a watch center which is pushed out to
13 all personnel on a regular basis. I mean, that is in
14 conjunction, we push that information into PEMA. We work
15 in a cooperative effort for these events.
16 Nothing of significance that I'm glancing at
17 right now.
18 REPRESENTATIVE SAINATO: No; I appreciate that,
19 because I'm getting some of the same updates you are--
20 MAJOR DEGNAN: Yep.
21 REPRESENTATIVE SAINATO: -- as I'm going through
22 listening and reading and, you know, what's happening.
23 It's always fluid, and I just appreciate the work that the
24 men and women of the State Police do when we are in these
25 situations. 122
1 We have had more than our share this winter. I
2 understand why the roads have been closed. We had a
3 meeting a few weeks ago with PEMA, and the State Police
4 were there as well, giving us the explanations of why you
5 do some of the things that you do.
6 Sometimes it doesn't always -- people don't
7 understand it until you've been through it, and you have
8 been through some of those crises which we have seen in the
9 past.
10 And I know that, and you maybe answered this,
11 have we had any fatalities this winter through these
12 crises?
13 MAJOR DEGNAN: Actually, no. But we have
14 noticed, we started tracking, particular to the prohibition
15 on commercial vehicles, when we looked at these weather
16 events, looking at Winter Storm Avery, the first one that
17 took place in November, for example, that was -- Harper was
18 the first one that we actually set up these bans in
19 advance. We have started tracking information storm
20 specific, which we really didn't do before.
21 We have noted that when we effect these bans, for
22 example, we had a 90-percent reduction -- 86.7 to be exact
23 -- reduction in commercial vehicle crashes and actually a
24 reduction in injury crashes from Winter Storm Avery to
25 Winter Storm Harper. We continue with each weather event 123
1 to track those, and the last one I believe we were
2 54 percent down over the first storm, Avery, in comparison.
3 REPRESENTATIVE SAINATO: Well, that's great to
4 know. I mean, that's good statistics. I think that, you
5 know, the life, human lives are so important, and when
6 you're in these disaster situations, we don't want to put
7 the Trooper's life in danger. We don't want to put our
8 EMS, our fire companies, anybody in danger.
9 And, you know, sometimes people don't always use
10 common sense when you tell them to try to stay off the
11 roads, having get on the roads. I mean, there are times
12 you have to be on the roads, okay?
13 MAJOR DEGNAN: Mm-hmm.
14 REPRESENTATIVE SAINATO: But there are others who
15 don't always heed some of these warnings. And, you know, I
16 think we're seeing more, I think people are understanding
17 that there are realities associated with some of these
18 weather declarations.
19 At least I know this winter, it has been very
20 active for our committee, you know, to get on the emergency
21 calls with PEMA to declare emergencies, probably a little
22 bit more than we have had. So we do thank you for those
23 efforts.
24 And just a little follow-up on the radio system.
25 Now, the new radio system, I know when we first 124
1 dealt with this issue in committee a few years back, I
2 mean, it was really a mess, and I think we have come a long
3 way. Are you seeing that it's really starting to work and
4 gel between all levels of EMS and fire and police to all be
5 on the same page when it comes to these types of
6 emergencies?
7 MAJOR DEGNAN: I think from an end-user
8 standpoint, the interoperability that the P series radio is
9 going to afford us is going to be leaps and bounds over
10 what we previously had.
11 REPRESENTATIVE SAINATO: Yeah. That's good to
12 hear.
13 I just remember even locally, some of the fire
14 companies, one fire company had one brand of radio and
15 another one had a different brand. The local police had
16 this version; the other township had another version. It's
17 just something that, when you think back, it's how could
18 this have happened. I'm just happy to see that we have
19 come, you know, leaps and bounds, off of what you're
20 saying, and it's so important.
21 So I just, in conclusion, just thank you. Thank
22 you for your service to the Commonwealth. And from the
23 Democrats' perspective, we appreciate your service as well.
24 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Representative Pyle,
25 Chairman of the Liquor Control Committee. 125
1 REPRESENTATIVE PYLE: Good morning, all. Thanks
2 for being with us today.
3 And since it seems to be the cool thing to do,
4 I am Kittanning, Barracks D. I grew up on a street with
5 four State Policemen, and in 1975, you guys had the only
6 FM radio I had ever seen in a car.
7 I'm going to be quick about this, because you
8 would think after 2 hours and 36 minutes, every possible
9 question had been asked, but here we go.
10 A real simple yes or no: Does PSP maintain a
11 database of PICS approvals and disapprovals?
12 MAJOR PRICE: Sir, legislatively, we're not
13 allowed to maintain any information on approvals
14 whatsoever. There are tracking numbers in the system such
15 to allow for back-end accounting processes, but we can't
16 maintain any approvals.
17 But, yes, we do maintain information on denials.
18 We have to do that, because very often there's a challenge
19 to a denial and we have to have the information available
20 to us to, you know, extract that from the system.
21 REPRESENTATIVE PYLE: That's perfect. Thank you.
22 The second question, and I'm switching gears,
23 Chairman.
24 I was on this Committee for 7 ^ years, and I can
25 recall at least four times PSP came to us with a need for 126
1 money for cadet classes, for a lot of different things, and
2 we always managed to answer the bell.
3 Now, a few years ago, we could not fund cadet
4 classes at the Academy, and you guys had a serious bubble
5 of people wanting to retire. We came up with a plan that
6 said, if our local municipalities maintain a full-time
7 police force, they would get a full half share in any fines
8 or seizures that took place. If the municipality was a
9 part-time police force, they would not.
10 Now, as a result, many of my municipalities did
11 add the 12, 16 hours to their part-time police force and
12 became full time. That entailed hiring people that are now
13 FOP unionized. And I'm not getting this latest funding
14 plan, because it seems to penalize municipalities that did
15 what was requested of them, to take their police
16 departments full time.
17 This latest plan from the Governor would seem to
18 be nothing more than a revenue generator and using PSP to
19 do it. So, Chairman, for the record, if that comes back up
20 again, I'll be opposing -- loudly.
21 The third thing. I'm pretty sure you all swear
22 on the same holy book that we do that you will uphold the
23 U.S. Constitution and the Commonwealth Constitution.
24 Lately in Pittsburgh, which is very close to me, the Mayor
25 has come out to put forth language that is pretty directly 127
1 and literally unconstitutional. Why have we not arrested
2 him yet?
3 I mean, we all swear to uphold the same
4 Constitution, and he blatantly is not. So back to what
5 Chairman Saylor brought up, it would seem to me you all
6 have become politicized, and that's really a shame, because
7 I remember four guys from my block, two who later went on
8 to run the State Police for the whole State.
9 Now, I hold you all in the highest esteem. You
10 are our version of the Texas Rangers. You make sense out
11 of chaos in millions of different varieties, but I have a
12 serious problem with your answer about ICE.
13 Now, in a federalist system, everybody obeys the
14 Federal law. People below that level, at the State level,
15 obey Federal law and State law. People on the lower level,
16 municipal level, have to obey State law, Federal law, and
17 whatever ordinances they pass themselves. I know if you
18 pull over a drunk driver, you will field test him right
19 there to look for evidence if this guy is drunk, and if he
20 shows that evidence, you all take him to the hospital and
21 you draw blood, with his permission. Standard op. It's
22 been done that way forever and ever and ever.
23 Now, should I have to ask for LCE to go into
24 Pittsburgh for a nuisance bar, are you all, is your legal
25 counsel going to tell me no? I mean, it's the law, but 128
1 that doesn't seem to really matter. Our law says illegal
2 aliens are to be detained and deported if possible.
3 Now, should a person get pulled over in a car for
4 that DUI bust I just brought up, you're probably going to
5 detain him a little longer if the field test shows he's
6 blowing drunk. You're not going to let him get back in the
7 car and drive off.
8 I see the red light has come on. I'll finish up.
9 So if that driver is an illegal alien or you're
10 looking for a guy that just robbed the liquor store or a
11 bank, will you detain that illegal longer? That's my
12 question.
13 MAJOR PRICE: So that would be a criminal
14 offense, sir, and that's---
15 REPRESENTATIVE PYLE: Is it a criminal offense if
16 they have not applied for naturalization?
17 MAJOR PRICE: Well, and again, we're going by the
18 Supreme Court, what they told us in U.S. v. Arizona, and
19 that's where that guidance came from in terms of extending
20 the traffic stop and so forth.
21 REPRESENTATIVE PYLE: Thanks.
22 MAJOR PRICE: Yes, sir.
23 REPRESENTATIVE PYLE: I'm sure I'll have
24 questions later, Chairman.
25 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: All right. 129
1 Representative Gainey has two.
2 REPRESENTATIVE GAINEY: Well, good afternoon now.
3 First and foremost, I just actually, I want to
4 say I thank you for your service as well to the
5 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. I just have a couple of
6 questions.
7 There's no question there has been a rise in hate
8 groups throughout America, and definitely in Pennsylvania.
9 I would like to know, one, what you're doing to address
10 that situation; two, what agencies are you working with;
11 and three, where are the majority of them located at in the
12 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania?
13 We know there's a rise, but we're just trying to
14 figure out before -- we don't want to see in Pennsylvania
15 what has happened in other States, and we have had several,
16 we've had several in the Commonwealth already. So what is
17 your plan to address the hate groups that are beginning to
18 spring forth in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania?
19 MAJOR PRICE: Sir, I think that's sort of
20 bifurcated. It touches on operations. It touches on my
21 area.
22 In terms of my area, we have our Heritage Affairs
23 Office. We're actually in the process of expanding the
24 services, expanding the number of personnel in our Heritage
25 Affairs Office. Now, due to manpower, we can't necessarily 130
1 devote additional people full time, but we're looking to
2 bring on additional people in a secondary, in a secondary
3 role, if you will.
4 What our Heritage Affairs Office does is monitor
5 hate crimes throughout Pennsylvania. That might be
6 information that comes from open-source reporting. It
7 might be information that comes from PHRC. It might be
8 information that comes from the Anti-Defamation League.
9 I actually have a meeting with them on March 7th where I
10 sit as, where I've been invited as a member of the
11 Law Enforcement Advisory Panel. Or it may come to us
12 through our electronic Daily Command Report, which is a
13 report coming in to us from the field of all incidents that
14 occur.
15 When we see any sort of incident that appears
16 that it may somehow be racially motivated or constitute a
17 hate crime, we vet that down to Heritage Affairs. What
18 Heritage Affairs does then is, they are essentially the
19 conduit to interact with the local municipality.
20 Recently we had a situation in Hazelton, for
21 example, where our Heritage Affairs people interacted with
22 the municipality, interacted with the police department, in
23 an attempt to quell the potential racial tension that that
24 might cause and then to bring information back to us.
25 REPRESENTATIVE GAINEY: Okay. But how are we 131
1 better surveilling it? We know that it's growing. We know
2 that it's a concern and an issue. I'm sorry; it's not even
3 an issue no more, it's a priority. What is the
4 surveillance?
5 I heard you say that there may not be enough
6 manpower that you have right now to really put a full
7 investigation under it. But don't you believe that right
8 now, with everything going on, that this should be a
9 priority that the State takes serious, that we should be
10 finding out and identifying where hate groups are in the
11 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania?
12 MAJOR PRICE: Yes. And as I said, Heritage
13 Affairs does much of that, and our Bureau of Criminal
14 Investigation---
15 MAJOR DEGNAN: We also, through our Bureau of
16 Criminal Investigation, PCIC, the Pennsylvania Criminal
17 Information Center, we're very aggressive with monitoring
18 whether it's social media or other mechanisms, hate groups
19 within Pennsylvania, and we're very aggressive in
20 prosecuting those.
21 REPRESENTATIVE GAINEY: I know you all furnish a
22 lot of different reports on drugs and things like that, but
23 I have never seen one about hate groups. Will you be
24 furnishing a report about the state of hate groups in the
25 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania? 132
1 MAJOR DEGNAN: We have published those before,
2 sir.
3 REPRESENTATIVE GAINEY: You have?
4 MAJOR DEGNAN: I will check and get back to you
5 on when the next one is.
6 REPRESENTATIVE GAINEY: I would love to see one
7 just going forward.
8 And I want to piggyback on something my
9 colleague, Donna Bullock from Philadelphia, said in regards
10 to minority hiring and women hiring.
11 Is there a plan that you have in place, and do
12 you have an African-American commission, a women's
13 commission, to talk about how you can recruit more? I know
14 one from my area is Robin Mungo, and I know how great she
15 is. But my comment to you is a priority, particularly
16 since we understand that it's low when it comes to the
17 volume of minorities that has been hired. What is the plan
18 that next year when you come here, that can be evaluated to
19 say that you have increased the hiring of minorities and
20 women?
21 MAJOR PRICE: So just recently, at the Colonel's
22 behest, we put together a standing diversity committee
23 within the department under Lieutenant Rob Bailey, who
24 serves in our recruiting and retention office.
25 Our union, the PSTA, actually also has a 133
1 diversity committee. Rob has given us a very specific -
2 or Lieutenant Bailey -- a very specific plan in terms of
3 moving forward, how to address it.
4 The purpose of the committee is essentially
5 multifold. One is to get information back to us, but one
6 is to also get out in front of some of these issues and to
7 take a fresh look at what we can do better.
8 REPRESENTATIVE GAINEY: I would love to see that.
9 Can you submit that to the Chairmen, please, so that we can
10 take a look at the overall view of that commission.
11 And just lastly, how many drug busts have we had
12 in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania this last year?
13 MAJOR DEGNAN: Give me one second, sir.
14 And I can speak to -- (referencing report) -
15 Act 64 arrests. PSP, 11,393, sir.
16 REPRESENTATIVE GAINEY: Has that been an increase
17 or a decrease?
18 MAJOR DEGNAN: That's an increase over 2017 where
19 10,217 took place.
20 REPRESENTATIVE GAINEY: All right.
21 MAJOR DEGNAN: And an increase over 2016, with
22 that number being 8318.
23 REPRESENTATIVE GAINEY: So we continue to spend a
24 billion dollars on the war on drugs to fight this, but at
25 the end of the day, it seems like when you look at the 134
1 statistics, we have both more homicides, more suicides,
2 more ODs. Is there any way that we can even think about
3 when we'll win this war on drugs or is this just wasting
4 taxpayer dollars?
5 MAJOR DEGNAN: To surrender is not an acceptable
6 thing, sir.
7 REPRESENTATIVE GAINEY: Are we surrendering or do
8 we have to talk about changing the business model to be
9 more acceptable to maybe it's more public health than
10 public safety?
11 MAJOR DEGNAN: I think there's equal footing on
12 both sides, sir.
13 REPRESENTATIVE GAINEY: So we wouldn't be
14 surrendering. We need a plan to discuss this both,
15 correct?
16 MAJOR DEGNAN: Correct.
17 REPRESENTATIVE GAINEY: I think we should address
18 that. Thank you.
19 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Commissioner, I'm not
20 going to do a second round due to time, but I know
21 Representative Struzzi had questions for you on the
22 complement. You had stated before you never have had a
23 full complement of Troopers.
24 So the budget request you put in, is that for a
25 full complement? 135
1 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: I would work to
2 the full complement of 4719, yes. The budget increase from
3 last year to this year basically is to overcome some of our
4 salary and benefits. So it does not really fund
5 additional, but hopefully with the three more cadet classes
6 and if we put a fourth one in in this fiscal year, it will
7 get us close to that 4719 number.
8 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: I'm assuming you're
9 the same thing industry is: baby boomers are retiring.
10 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: Yes.
11 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Plus, I know there are
12 some other conditions.
13 So you believe that the three cadet classes will
14 put you near your complement?
15 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: Hopefully, yes.
16 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Okay.
17 Do you have at this time any idea -- I don't need
18 numbers. How far in advance do the Troopers let you know
19 that they plan to retire?
20 LIEUTENANT COLONEL EVANCHICK: They don't. They
21 can put in the paperwork and tomorrow they could go.
22 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Okay. Very good.
23 The other, one of the complaints I get, and I see
24 it a lot because I travel Interstate 83, but elsewhere as
25 well around York County, and as I travel the State, is a 136
1 lot of the very, very dark windows on vehicles. And I'm
2 real concerned about the safety of our police officers, not
3 just State Troopers which I'm concerned about, but it seems
4 to me like the inspection stations are not doing their job
5 in getting rid of those when they don't meet the test that
6 Pennsylvania has. Are there any enforcements that you're
7 dealing with on that at all when you have stops, whether
8 it's traffic stops or whatever?
9 MAJOR DEGNAN: Well--
10 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Because I get
11 complaints from citizens who, it's kind of scary for them
12 with the road rage and everything else that's going on.
13 I'm getting more and more complaints about the windows.
14 MAJOR DEGNAN: It's not a specific category I
15 have to be able to give you a number, but we can provide
16 that to you later, sir. It is obviously an illegal
17 activity.
18 To the inspections of the vehicle, happening with
19 that, we could push that out to our vehicle fraud
20 investigators and have them take a look at it.
21 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Yeah. I mean, I have
22 had some police officers mention it. They're concerned,
23 the local police officers. But believe it or not, I have
24 gotten more complaints from citizens who are concerned
25 about their local police officers and the danger it puts 137
1 them in in a traffic stop or any other kind of stop.
2 So I just wanted to mention it. I didn't expect
3 to have any numbers, but I wanted to mention it at least
4 there.
5 One of the things I talked to the Governor about
6 that I think is critical, particularly, but I think it' s
7 true for all parts of the State, is I travel Interstate 83,
8 and if you're familiar with Interstate 83, it's shut down
9 on a regular basis. The problem with that, and it's true
10 probably with 81 or any other number of roads across
11 Pennsylvania that are huge interstates, is that the
12 State Police do not call out fire police. And I have asked
13 the Governor to issue that memorandum to you, State
14 Troopers to call out the local fire police.
15 And the reason being is, if you're ever involved
16 or go outside and get off 83 when sometimes both lanes are
17 closed down, let alone one, it is really endangering
18 children and adults. I have come through, and kids are
19 waiting for the bus, and it gets really nasty in these
20 small towns and communities where stop signs are, it's just
21 not made to handle the amount of traffic that an interstate
22 has and where I believe fire police being called out and
23 local police being notified will help improve the safety.
24 And I would like to see, Commissioner, if you would make
25 sure that's an edict to all your Troopers when they're 138
1 involved, particularly on the interstates.
2 Usually if it's in a local municipality, even
3 though you're handling it, it seems like the fire police
4 show up. But on the interstates when they're directed off
5 into these local communities, it seems like there's never,
6 and I repeat the word, because I have a number of times
7 been diverted off 83, never fire police there. And that's
8 of great concern to me, because particularly at school bus
9 time, which is when I'm usually headed this way, I don't
10 see fire police on the other roads in Fairview or
11 Newberry or Loganville or wherever it happens to be, and
12 I'm just concerned that somebody in their rush runs
13 stop signs and red lights and everything else, and I've
14 seen it already.
15 So just make a note of that if you would, Major,
16 and I would appreciate anything you can do there to try and
17 provide a little bit safer in our communities on the
18 interstates. And not just 83. Like I said, I think it's
19 important for all the interstates when they're rerouted.
20 With that, I'm going to thank all of you for
21 coming and testifying. I appreciate your time today. And
22 again, I want to reemphasize that this Committee, and I
23 think both Caucuses, value our State Troopers as one of the
24 finest law enforcement agencies in the world, not just the
25 nation. 139
1 So again, thank you for your service, and God
2 bless and be safe.
3 With that, this Committee will reconvene at 1:45
4 to hear from the Board of Corrections and eventually from
5 the Department of Health and Drug and Alcohol.
6 With that, this hearing is adjourned until then.
7
8 (At 12:52 p.m., the public hearing adjourned.) 140
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