COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE BUDGET HEARING
PENNSYLVANIA STATE POLICE OFFICE OF HOMELAND SECURITY
STATE CAPITOL HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA ROOM 140, MAJORITY CAUCUS ROOM
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2017 10:00 A.M.
BEFORE: HONORABLE STANLEY SAYLOR, MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HONORABLE JOSEPH MARKOSEK, MINORITY CHAIRMAN HONORABLE KAREN BOBACK HONORABLE JIM CHRISTIANA HONORABLE SHERYL DELOZIER HONORABLE GEORGE DUNBAR HONORABLE GARTH EVERETT HONORABLE KEITH GREINER HONORABLE SETH GROVE HONORABLE MARCIA HAHN HONORABLE SUE HELM HONORABLE WARREN KAMPF HONORABLE FRED KELLER HONORABLE JERRY KNOWLES HONORABLE DUANE MILNE HONORABLE JASON ORTITAY HONORABLE MIKE PEIFER HONORABLE JEFF PYLE HONORABLE MARGUERITE QUINN HONORABLE BRAD ROAE HONORABLE JAMIE SANTORA HONORABLE CURT SONNEY HONORABLE KEVIN BOYLE HONORABLE TIM BRIGGS HONORABLE DONNA BULLOCK HONORABLE MARY JO DALEY HONORABLE MADELEINE DEAN HONORABLE MARIA DONATUCCI HONORABLE MARTY FLYNN 2
1 (CONT'D.)
2 HONORABLE PATTY KIM HONORABLE STEPHEN KINSEY 3 HONORABLE LEANNE KRUEGER-BRANEKY HONORABLE MIKE O'BRIEN 4 HONORABLE MARK ROZZI HONORABLE PETER SCHWEYER 5
6 MAJORITY NON-COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
7 HONORABLE RON MARSICO HONORABLE BARRY JOZWIAK 8 HONORABLE DAVE ZIMMERMAN HONORABLE TEDD NESBIT 9 HONORABLE TODD STEPHENS HONORABLE ADAM HARRIS 10 HONORABLE MATT DOWLING
11 MINORITY NON-COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
12 HONORABLE JOE PETRARCA HONORABLE PAUL COSTA 13 HONORABLE MORGAN CEPHAS HONORABLE PERRY WARREN 14 HONORABLE ED NEILSON HONORABLE DOM COSTA 15 COMMITTEE STAFF: 16 DAVID DONLEY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR (R) 17 RITCHIE LAFAVER, DEPUTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR (R) MIRIAM FOX, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR (D) 18 TARA TREES, CHIEF COUNSEL (D)
19 TRACY L. MARKLE, 20 COURT REPORTER/NOTARY PUBLIC
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1 INDEX TO TESTIFIERS
2 NAME PAGE
3 COLONEL TYREE C. BLOCKER, COMMISSIONER 5 PA STATE POLICE 4 LT. COLONEL STEPHEN BUCAR, 26 5 DEPUTY COMMISSIONER OF STAFF PA STATE POLICE 6 LT. COLONEL LISA CHRISTIE -- 7 DEPUTY COMMISSIONER OF ADMINISTRATION AND PROFESSIONAL LIABILITY 8 PA STATE POLICE
9 MAJOR ROBERT EVANCHICK -- ACTING DEPUTY COMMISSIONER OF OPERATIONS 10 PA STATE POLICE
11 MAJOR DIANE STACKHOUSE, 37 DIRECTOR OF THE BUREAU OF COMMUNICATIONS 12 AND INFORMATION SERVICES PA STATE POLICE 13 WILLIAM BOX, DIRECTOR OF THE FISCAL DIVISION -- 14 PA STATE POLICE
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1 ---oOo---
2 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Good morning,
3 everyone. A reminder to everybody to please
4 have their cell phones on vibrate or turned off.
5 To the Commissioner and the others, if you would
6 speak directly into the mike, the hearing is
7 being transcribed remotely, so that they can
8 hear everything.
9 I wanted to announce some of the guest
10 members who are not members of the Appropriation
11 Committee that are here today. I have
12 Representative Cephas, Chairman Petrarca,
13 Chairman Paul Costa, Representative Perry
14 Warren, Representative Ed Neilson,
15 Representative Barry Jozwiak, Representative Ron
16 Marsico are here. Also, we have Representative
17 Dowling here as well.
18 Before we start today, I wanted to
19 recognize that Colonel Blocker dedicated his
20 written testimony today and opening remarks to
21 Trooper Landon Weaver, who was shot and killed
22 in the line of duty in December.
23 Our brave men and women in law
24 enforcement throughout our Commonwealth
25 regularly put their lives on the line to keep us 5
1 safe, and therefore I'd like to begin this
2 hearing this morning with a moment of silence in
3 remembrance of Trooper Landon Weaver and all the
4 men and woman who serve the State Police.
5 (Moment of silence.)
6 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: All right.
7 Commissioner, I want to welcome you this morning
8 to the hearing. For those that are going to
9 testify, would you rise and raise your right
10 hand to be sworn in?
11 (All testifiers sworn en masse.)
12 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Thank you
13 very much. And, Commissioner, you may start
14 with any opening remarks that you have.
15 MR. BLOCKER: Very good. Good morning,
16 Chairman Saylor, Chairman Markosek, and members
17 of the House Appropriations Committee. As the
18 Chairman indicated, I'm Colonel Tyree Blocker,
19 Commissioner of the Pennsylvania State Police.
20 With me today is Deputy Commissioner of
21 Staff, Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Bucar; the
22 Deputy Commissioner of Administration and
23 Professional Responsibility, Lieutenant Colonel
24 Lisa Christie; and the acting Commissioner of
25 Operations, Major Robert Evanchick. 6
1 Also with me today is the Director of
2 the Bureau of Communication and Information
3 Services, Major Diane Stackhouse and Director of
4 our Fiscal Division, Mr. William Box.
5 As Chairman Saylor indicated, we
6 dedicated this testimony today to Trooper Landon
7 Weaver, who on December 30th, 2016 became the
8 97th member of the Pennsylvania State Police to
9 lay down his life in pursuit of safeguarding the
10 citizens and visitors to our great Commonwealth.
11 We are grateful to Governor Wolf and
12 members of the General Assembly for their
13 steadfast commitment to public safety and ardent
14 support of the Pennsylvania State Police
15 operations.
16 Furthermore, I would also like to thank
17 the citizens of Pennsylvania for their
18 unwavering support and kindness they have
19 demonstrated toward the State Police. Our
20 department is one of the most comprehensive
21 providers of professional police services in the
22 country.
23 We are the tenth largest police agency
24 in the nation and the third largest
25 internationally accredited law enforcement 7
1 agency in the world. Currently, we patrol 82
2 percent of the land area of the Commonwealth and
3 60 percent of the highways, including all of our
4 interstates.
5 Last year, Troopers made over 70,000
6 criminal arrests and issued over 600,000 traffic
7 citations. Additionally, Troopers made 19,701
8 arrests for driving under the influence of
9 alcohol and drugs.
10 The State Police provides either
11 full-time or part-time police protection to
12 1,703 municipalities in this great Commonwealth.
13 In addition, we also deliver specialty services
14 to municipal police agencies at no cost.
15 Several of the many services include drug
16 identification, DNA analysis, and latent
17 fingerprint examination at our seven crime
18 laboratories.
19 The Pennsylvania State Police is
20 legislatively mandated to provide police
21 services to municipalities that do not have
22 their own police department, as well as those
23 municipalities that do have their own police
24 department but request our services.
25 The demand for State Police services 8
1 continues to grow. For example, last year,
2 members of the State Police played a major role
3 in planning and providing security in and around
4 the city of Philadelphia during the National
5 Democratic Convention and in western
6 Pennsylvania during the US Open Golf Tournament.
7 We would like, again, to thank Governor
8 Wolf for his commitment to ensuring that public
9 safety is upheld throughout the Commonwealth, as
10 demonstrated in his proposal to fund three cadet
11 classes in 2017, which will send approximately
12 300 cadets through our training academy. That's
13 very important for the Agency going forward.
14 The funding of regularly occurring cadet
15 classes is of paramount importance to the State
16 Police and we would like to extend our gratitude
17 again to the Governor, members of this
18 Committee, and the General Assembly for
19 appreciating the critical nature of this need
20 and supporting our fiscal requirements in the
21 past.
22 As of February 13th, 2017, there were
23 497 vacant enlisted positions within the State
24 Police. There is also the possibility the
25 Department may see a significant number of 9
1 retirements in the future, creating a condition
2 where the flow of recent Academy graduates does
3 not keep up with our attrition levels. While it
4 is difficult to predict the number of
5 retirements, it should be noted this scenario
6 produces a level of uncertainty over our ability
7 to maintain adequate staffing levels.
8 We are continuing our efforts to recruit
9 qualified individuals who are reflective of
10 Pennsylvania's diverse communities. The State
11 Police provides a range of other services in
12 addition to patrolling and solving crime. The
13 safety and efficiency of Troopers and municipal
14 police officers is greatly enhanced by unique
15 elements within the State Police.
16 These specialty units are staffed by
17 highly-trained members of the Department, many
18 of whom provide this service in addition to
19 their primary functions of patrol and criminal
20 investigation unit members.
21 Some of the most visible of these are
22 the Special Emergency Response Team, better
23 known as SERT; the Sexual Offender Registry or
24 Megan's Law; the state crime labs; the
25 Pennsylvania Access To Criminal History, better 10
1 known as PATCH; and the Pennsylvania Instant
2 Check System, better known as PICS. Our elite
3 cert unit is increasingly being called upon to
4 assist trooper operations and municipal police
5 departments across the entire state with an
6 average of 237 requests for services a year.
7 Many of those activations were for
8 highly volatile situations involving barricaded
9 gunmen or a high-risk warrant service. Another
10 highly-trained specialty unit increasingly being
11 called upon by local law enforcement agencies is
12 our Hazardous Device and Explosive Section,
13 commonly known as the bomb squad.
14 This unit responds to statewide requests
15 for suspicious packages, as improvised explosive
16 devices, and discovered military ordnance. Our
17 Clandestine Lab Response Team is the only one of
18 its kind in the Commonwealth and has the
19 unenviable task of collecting evidence and
20 conducting clean-up functions for all suspected
21 elicit drug labs.
22 Last year, our PATCH Unit received and
23 responded to 1,818,509 requests for criminal
24 history checks. Of those, 508,000 were for
25 volunteer criminal history checks provided at no 11
1 cost. Despite the enormous number of PATCH
2 requests, our personnel assigned to the PATCH
3 Unit were up to the challenge and worked
4 diligently to ensure backlogs and turnaround
5 time remained reasonable.
6 In 2016, our PICS Unit conducted over
7 1.1 million firearm background checks which
8 resulted in 13,196 denials. Denials may occur
9 for a number of reasons, including convictions
10 of certain crimes as enumerated in Section 6105
11 of the Pennsylvania Crimes Code, the existence
12 of a Protection From Abuse Order disqualifying
13 federal criteria, including certain indictments
14 and prior disqualifying mental-health
15 commitments.
16 In 2016, the Pennsylvania Instant Check
17 System committed 37,716 disqualifying
18 mental-health records for inclusion in the
19 National Instant Check System index. The total
20 number of mental-health records submitted to the
21 National Instant Check System now exceeds
22 800,000, with Pennsylvania among the highest
23 contributors nationwide.
24 Last year, PICS referred over 6400 cases
25 to State Police troops and municipal police 12
1 departments for investigation of potential
2 violation of the Pennsylvania Uniformed Crimes
3 Act that came to light during the background
4 check process. As of now, over 700 of those
5 referrals are being prosecuted.
6 The Commonwealth's strategic geographic
7 location and converging interstate highway
8 system provides access to major cities,
9 airports, and one of the largest seaports along
10 the eastern seaboard. Unfortunately, it also
11 presents a natural conduit for the illegal
12 trafficking of contraband and illegal drugs.
13 As such, the State Police recognizes the
14 importance of having the capability to detect
15 and intercept such unlawful activities. One way
16 in which the State Police accomplishes this is
17 through our Bureau of Criminal Investigations
18 Safe Highway Initiative through Effective Law
19 Enforcement and Detection Program. The acronym
20 for that is SHIELD.
21 The SHIELD Unit consists of full-time
22 teams operating out of six locations across the
23 Commonwealth. The teams conduct their
24 enforcement efforts on major highways throughout
25 Pennsylvania. 13
1 In 2016, the SHIELD Unit interdicted
2 over 41 kilograms of cocaine, 24 kilograms of
3 heroin, 1080 pounds of processed marijuana, and
4 30 kilograms of synthetic marijuana, as well as
5 various amounts of both prescription and other
6 illegal drugs.
7 They made 135 criminal arrests, seized
8 over $1.1 million in cash, 10 vehicles, 34
9 firearms, and captured 11 fugitives from
10 justice.
11 As you know, Opioid abuse continues to
12 be a problem in Pennsylvania. Treatment,
13 education, and enforcement are necessary
14 elements in combatting this epidemic. The State
15 Police have worked diligently and in concert
16 with a variety of other state agencies, as well
17 as community groups to attack this issue.
18 All patrol units are outfitted with
19 Naloxone, a drug, as you know, used to reverse
20 the effects of Opioids in overdose incidents.
21 Since implementing our Naloxone program in April
22 of 2015, 70 lives have been saved through our
23 members' deployment of the drug.
24 The State Police provides drug education
25 to schools and community groups through a 14
1 variety of presentations. In addition, we have
2 developed a three-prong strategy against the
3 heroin epidemic, consisting of interdiction,
4 investigation, and as I indicated, our Naloxone
5 program.
6 Enforcement initiatives are conducted in
7 order to attempt to interdict the flow of heroin
8 into the Commonwealth. In 2016, Troopers
9 confiscated 117 pounds of heroin with an
10 estimated street value of $21 million.
11 Investigations into the identification and
12 eventual criminal prosecution of responsible
13 dealers in heroin overdose death are
14 aggressively pursued.
15 Our Bureau of Criminal Investigation
16 operates the Commonwealth's federally designated
17 all-hazards fusion center, also known as the
18 Pennsylvania Criminal Intelligence Center or
19 PaCIC.
20 PaCIC disseminates vital information to
21 keep police officers and citizens safe, as well
22 as aiding in protecting critical infrastructure
23 and key resources in the Commonwealth.
24 PaCIC has been nationally recognized
25 with awards for excellence in service provided. 15
1 In 2016, it received nearly 1600 tips associated
2 with a wide variety of topics, including those
3 associated with suspected terrorism, drug
4 dealers, and the location of fugitives.
5 All of these tips were investigated by
6 either members of the State Police or allied
7 agencies. The Center is staffed by 44 analysts
8 and supervisors, along with representatives from
9 a host of state and federal law enforcement
10 agencies and all-hazard partners, including the
11 Federal Bureau of Investigation and the
12 Department of Homeland Security.
13 Last year, PaCIC received 37,490
14 requests for information from federal, state,
15 and local agencies. As a response to these
16 requests, our analysts completed over 57,000
17 products for these agencies, enhancing and
18 furthering their investigation.
19 PaCIC remains a national model for
20 information sharing by providing law enforcement
21 agencies consolidated archived public
22 information, situational awareness reports,
23 investigative material, and criminal
24 information.
25 One of the pillars of 21st Century 16
1 policing involves the use of technology. Though
2 the Pennsylvania State Police is frequently a
3 leader in the adoption of cutting-edge law
4 enforcement technologies, we continue to seek
5 ways to improve in this area in order to best
6 serve members of the community more effectively
7 and efficiently.
8 As an agency, we've identified a need to
9 update the manner in which we capture
10 investigative data and are continuing the
11 process of rolling out a state-of-the-art
12 records management system.
13 This system is able to capture and share
14 information from the initial request for State
15 Police services throughout the entire span of an
16 investigation. This electronic capture and
17 analysis of data will greatly enhance the
18 investigative capabilities and efficiencies of
19 our personnel.
20 Members of the Appropriations Committee,
21 I am certain you will remain conscious of the
22 demanding process on which you are about to
23 embark. However, I would be remiss if I failed
24 to note how crucial it is that the State Police
25 be adequately funded. 17
1 Officer safety could be negatively
2 impacted by cuts in programs such as our
3 statewide radio system initiative. Moreover,
4 our budget is driven primarily by personnel
5 costs. And decreases to the State Police budget
6 would likely result in future cadet classes
7 being eliminated.
8 Should that occur, the State Police's
9 ability to provide the citizens of this great
10 Commonwealth with the quality of services they
11 deserve and have come to expect would be
12 negatively impacted.
13 Governor Wolf has proposed a $25 per
14 person fee for municipalities which currently
15 rely on the Pennsylvania State Police for
16 full-time police coverage.
17 Fiscal analysis of field expenditures
18 show cost estimates for the State Police to
19 provide full-time police services to over 1200
20 municipalities to be approximately $600 million
21 annually or around $234 per capita. It should,
22 however, be noted this amount does not include
23 indirect costs such as administrative overhead
24 or special police functions, like aviation
25 assets, canine, or many of the other various 18
1 services I've previously discussed.
2 Ladies and Gentlemen, I am honored to
3 serve as Commissioner of one of the finest law
4 enforcement agencies in the nation. The men and
5 women of the Pennsylvania State Police are
6 faithful servants to the citizens of this
7 Commonwealth and perform their duties with the
8 utmost integrity, professionalism, and courage.
9 They represent a rare breed of brave
10 individuals who have taken an oath and are
11 willing to lay down their lives rather than
12 swerve from the path of duty.
13 Thank you for allowing me to address
14 your Committee. My staff and I will be pleased
15 to answer any questions you may have.
16 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
17 Representative Markosek.
18 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: Thank you,
19 Chairman. Just very briefly, Commissioner; we
20 are very honored to have you here today, you and
21 your colleagues, and we appreciate all the fine
22 work you do.
23 And just to echo a little bit about what
24 you said at the end of your remarks there, yes,
25 you need to be adequately funded and better 19
1 funded, quite frankly, in my opinion. And you
2 mentioned the Governor's proposal. And I guess
3 my comments are more for my colleagues on this
4 side of the table than they are for you and your
5 colleagues on that side of the table, is that we
6 need to find you additional funding.
7 You mentioned that you cover about
8 two-thirds of the land area of the state, the
9 municipalities. About a third of the population
10 of the state is covered -- don't have local
11 police and have State Police and have State
12 Police coverage. You mentioned doing some
13 things for municipalities at no cost. There is
14 a cost, and somebody has to pay that. And, you
15 know, it's not really fair for municipalities to
16 have their local police forces and, in many
17 cases, like mine where I live, paying, you know,
18 a big part of their local budget for police
19 coverage and then also having to subsidize
20 police coverage in other municipalities.
21 So I applaud the Governor for -- and you
22 mentioned, I think it was $240 a head is what
23 the costs come to. He's proposed $25. So I'll
24 call it a start. And I applaud him for at least
25 coming forward with that. 20
1 We need to start that conversation.
2 That just has to happen. As a former Chairman
3 of the Transportation Committee, we can just no
4 longer use the Motor License Fund the way we
5 have for a lot of these things; because that was
6 put there for roads and bridges. So we need to
7 -- our -- again, I'm speaking to my colleagues
8 on this side of the table. We need to really
9 think about that seriously and find funding for
10 you and perhaps make the people that are using
11 some of your services pay their fair share.
12 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
13 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: We've been
14 joined by Chairman Harris, Representative
15 Zimmerman, Representative Nesbit, and
16 Representative Stephens.
17 And with that, we will move to our first
18 questioner, Representative Delozier.
19 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Thank you, Mr.
20 Chairman. I'm over here (indicating). You guys
21 are going to get tired of going back and forth,
22 back and forth. I have a bunch of questions,
23 and I appreciate you being here to answer these
24 questions.
25 Looking at the budget and you talked 21
1 about how you guys are stretched so thin. And
2 my question goes to that in the sense of an area
3 that might be not necessary any longer. So the
4 ability for Troopers to protect our casinos;
5 that is in the Gaming Law, obviously, and I know
6 that you're required to do so.
7 So my question is, how many Troopers are
8 at the casinos at this point with, I believe,
9 the 12 that we have open?
10 MR. BLOCKER: Thank you for that
11 question. Currently, we have 11 Troopers per
12 casino. That's a total of 132 that are tasked
13 with ensuring that there is order at those
14 particular locations. Their mission is designed
15 to enforce the gaming laws.
16 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Correct.
17 Okay. And are those 132 -- are those -- is a
18 lot of the time, is it straight time or is there
19 a lot of overtime with those officers? Or
20 Troopers, sorry.
21 MR. BLOCKER: That really depends on the
22 particular incident that may unfold at any given
23 time. My sense is that the --
24 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: What have you
25 seen so far -- kind of thing? 22
1 MR. BLOCKER: The majority of their time
2 is straight time.
3 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay.
4 MR. BLOCKER: Just providing assistance
5 when and where necessary to address gaming law
6 violations.
7 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay. And
8 what is the biggest issue that those Troopers
9 deal with?
10 MR. BLOCKER: There are a number of
11 Crimes Code violations that occur on the gaming
12 floor.
13 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Yeah, and I
14 don't mean to interrupt. And I apologize,
15 because we only have five minutes. But the
16 ability for -- the largest one, what is the
17 biggest issue that comes up time and time and
18 time again? Because I know there's lots of
19 different things that people who have a few
20 extra drinks might be doing.
21 MR. BLOCKER: It runs the gamut. Just
22 to give you a ballpark figure, in 2016, State
23 Police investigated 3700 crimes in the casino,
24 from theft to disorderly conduct; it runs the
25 gamut. 23
1 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay. Most of
2 them are fairly minor? I mean, we're not having
3 murders in our casinos or anything like that,
4 correct?
5 MR. BLOCKER: No, we are not.
6 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay.
7 MR. BLOCKER: And just to be clear,
8 Representative, with the 132 figure we gave,
9 that's just Troopers. The total is 141 when you
10 talk about supervisors.
11 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay. And the
12 ability for us -- and the reason I bring it up,
13 primarily, is because they do have their own
14 security. We have local law enforcement in most
15 of the situations where they are located and we
16 need Troopers on the street. We need Troopers
17 to be doing the many important things that you
18 had listed that they do.
19 And I guess would you support
20 changing -- and I know it's a legislative
21 issue -- changing that to allow for the locals
22 and their security to handle it and remove those
23 Troopers and put them back on the street?
24 MR. BLOCKER: Representative, we look at
25 this situation as working with the Legislature 24
1 in terms of where they believe Troopers need to
2 play an integral part in a particular industry.
3 We do it. We have Liquor Control Enforcement.
4 We have Gaming.
5 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: That's my next
6 question.
7 MR. BLOCKER: My sense is, there isn't
8 anything that the Pennsylvania State Police
9 cannot do.
10 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Absolutely.
11 And I --
12 MR. BLOCKER: It's just a matter of,
13 legislatively --
14 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: What is
15 necessary.
16 MR. BLOCKER: -- required to do.
17 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay. And I
18 appreciate that. And, like I said, it goes back
19 to the fact of using you guys where most impact
20 can happen. And you are highly trained and you
21 have the capabilities of doing so much, and
22 gaming and protecting the casinos may not be the
23 best use of your Troopers' time.
24 And you mentioned LCE. How many
25 Troopers work with the LCE? 25
1 MR. BLOCKER: I'll get that for you in a
2 second.
3 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Because I know
4 the officers that go out are not troopers in and
5 of themselves.
6 MR. BLOCKER: Currently, there are 17
7 enlisted Troopers, basically, in supervisory
8 capacity with LCE.
9 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay. And --
10 thank you for that. And one last question is,
11 my understanding -- you mentioned the labs that
12 you guys have and you run for many, many local
13 municipalities, as well as obviously PSP. My
14 understanding is those are free services that
15 you do not charge. But one of the line items in
16 the budget is called Crime Lab User Fees and
17 that was an increase. Can you tell me -- I just
18 don't understand if they're free, what that line
19 item is. If you could explain that.
20 MR. BLOCKER: Well, as I said, we do
21 have seven labs --
22 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Right.
23 MR. BLOCKER: -- in the Commonwealth.
24 We are mandated to provide laboratory services
25 for law enforcement. In terms of the direct 26
1 dollar cost associated with that, I'm not sure.
2 We -- maybe one of the deputies can share that.
3 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: That's fine.
4 And I'm not against charging the user fees. I'm
5 just -- since you had mentioned that there is no
6 -- my understanding was there was no charge, so
7 I'm just trying to make that jive.
8 MR. BUCAR: Yes, Representative, those
9 user fees are charged to the defendants.
10 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Oh, okay.
11 MR. BUCAR: Not to the law enforcement
12 agencies.
13 REPRESENTATIVE DELOZIER: Okay. And I'm
14 very red. Okay. Thank you very much.
15 MR. BLOCKER: You're welcome.
16 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
17 Representative Flynn.
18 REPRESENTATIVE FLYNN: Thank you, Mr.
19 Chairman. Thank you for your testimony,
20 Commissioner Blocker. I'm over here
21 (indicating).
22 Currently, 1164 out of 4,281 enlisted
23 members are eligible for 20-year retirement,
24 while an additional 384 are eligible for a full
25 retirement at 25 years. That's 1548 out of 27
1 4,281, over a third of the officers able to
2 retire with lifetime benefits and a hefty
3 percent of their salary.
4 Coming into a contract year and going to
5 arbitration without the usual 90-day letter you
6 guys have historically given to Troopers, which
7 allows Troopers 90 days past the arbitration to
8 retire with their current benefit, what measures
9 have you taken to prepare for a possible mass
10 retirement of a third of your force, and what
11 capacity does our training academy accommodate?
12 MR. BLOCKER: Well, I'll try to take the
13 last part of that question. We do have the
14 flexibility as an agency to recruit and to
15 expand our academy training, if necessary. We
16 always have contingency planning. There are a
17 number of unknown variables associated with a
18 member of the State Police making a conscious
19 effort to retire.
20 Obviously, you mentioned our retirement
21 provisions there. We look at, historically,
22 these kinds of things have -- we've always been
23 able to meet our commitment in terms of
24 providing the necessary human resources,
25 Troopers that is, in those locations around the 28
1 state where they're necessary. This is not an
2 exact science. People retire when it fits their
3 particular needs or interests or desire.
4 So, you know, we're at the point where
5 we've been down this road before. We always
6 have the capacity to be flexible to move our
7 members around. I think it's important to note
8 that, if necessary, we could put more than three
9 cadet classes through an academy in a fiscal
10 year. We've done it before. We've trained
11 multiple Troopers in various locations around
12 the state to facilitate, ensuring that we have
13 the necessary number to be an effective and
14 efficient agency.
15 REPRESENTATIVE FLYNN: Because I think
16 our force is going to look at this very
17 critically. And if I'm a State Trooper and
18 there's uncertainty in the next contract and I
19 can retire now with everything I have or 80
20 percent of what I'm making, it's probably not
21 worth when someone goes after your lifetime
22 benefits, if that's the case, you know.
23 MR. BLOCKER: Well, Representative, the
24 90-day issue that you raised, that's an issue
25 that the Office of Administration is addressing 29
1 and they're amenable to extending that proviso
2 for Troopers during this contract year.
3 REPRESENTATIVE FLYNN: Thank you. Thank
4 you.
5 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: I wanted to
6 announce that we've been joined by
7 Representative Dom Costa, as well. And with
8 that, we will move to Representative Helm.
9 REPRESENTATIVE HELM: Thank you, Mr.
10 Chairman. Welcome. Along the lines of new
11 revenues and cost efficiencies, is there the
12 possibility of monetizing Commonwealth assets as
13 proposed with the Farm Show Complex, such as the
14 Pennsylvania State Police radio towers? I was
15 just wondering, has this been discussed with
16 you?
17 MR. BLOCKER: Thank you for that
18 question, and I will ask Lieutenant Colonel
19 Bucar and Major Stackhouse to comment on that.
20 MR. BUCAR: Yes, Representative, it has
21 been discussed with us, the use of our towers.
22 REPRESENTATIVE HELM: Well, would
23 Department of General Services be the lead
24 agency to consider such lease proposals or would
25 you be more involved? 30
1 MR. BUCAR: We've been involved in
2 discussions with the Office of Administration,
3 Department of General Services, and some of the
4 other partner agencies. PennDOT's involved. I
5 think there are other state agencies, as well,
6 that have assets that are targeted for this
7 initiative.
8 REPRESENTATIVE HELM: And do you know
9 how much money this would generate and how it
10 could be used?
11 MR. BUCAR: I'm not -- my staff is not
12 aware of the revenue projections. Our concerns
13 have been emphasizing that our towers would not
14 be used in a way that would jeopardize public
15 safety radio systems. We've been promised by
16 DGS that any equipment or assets that want to be
17 placed on our towers that interfere with our
18 radio communications or the safety of the
19 Troopers, that we have the ability to veto that.
20 We're going to meet with them Friday to confirm
21 that that aspect is included in the governance
22 document.
23 REPRESENTATIVE HELM: All right. I have
24 another question then regarding safety. After
25 experiencing a tragic assault upon Troopers at 31
1 their barracks in 2014, another instance of
2 violence against law enforcement officers, is,
3 or can barracks security be something that can
4 be reviewed and addressed differently and do you
5 plan or have you proposed any capital budget
6 requests for lease improvements related to
7 enhance security to strengthen and improve
8 existing facilities?
9 MR. BLOCKER: I will take the first part
10 of that and essentially share with you that
11 we're always looking at security provisos for
12 our installations.
13 We've recently embarked on an initiative
14 to ensure that we have cameras in and around all
15 of our installations. That project is still
16 unfolding as we speak. My sense is that the
17 funding that's necessary for that is something
18 that we can handle within our current budget
19 constraints, but I'll -- I don't know if
20 Lieutenant Colonel Bucar has any additional
21 information on that.
22 MR. BUCAR: The buildings that we
23 currently occupy are being retrofitted with
24 certain security enhancements that I'd rather
25 not discuss publicly. But all the buildings 32
1 moving forward have those enhancements in the
2 design requirements, most of which came out of,
3 among other incidents, the Blooming Grove
4 tragedy.
5 REPRESENTATIVE HELM: All right. Thank
6 you. And thank you, Mr. Chairman.
7 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
8 Representative Kinsey.
9 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Thank you, Mr.
10 Chairman. I want to welcome Colonel Blocker,
11 Deputy Commissioners, Director Box; and I also
12 want to recognize and welcome Colonel Brown from
13 Homeland Security. Welcome, gentlemen and
14 ladies.
15 I want to start with a statement. You
16 know, I was really moved by the dedication this
17 morning. And my personal feelings are, there
18 are no greater heroes than the brave men and
19 women who wear the uniform and take the oath to
20 protect and serve our citizens. So I just want
21 to thank you, Colonel Blocker, and really all
22 the men and women from the Pennsylvania State
23 Police for all that you do for the citizens of
24 this Commonwealth. Really, truly appreciate
25 that. 33
1 Colonel Blocker, I was actually happy to
2 hear -- in your opening statement, you shared
3 what the State Police are doing about heroin
4 epidemic. You know, you talk about treatment,
5 education, and enforcement.
6 I represent a portion of the city of
7 Philadelphia. Unfortunately, a good friend of
8 ours, Representative Cruz, represents a portion
9 of Philadelphia that has the highest death rates
10 due to overdose. It's called the Kensington
11 area. In fact, I know he has a hearing coming
12 up. They have this thing called open-air
13 bridges, where folks are gathering and getting
14 high. And I know that the Philadelphia Police
15 Department is working to combat that.
16 I guess my question is, has the
17 Philadelphia Police Department reached out to
18 the State Police in a joint effort to combat the
19 heroin epidemic in the city of Philadelphia?
20 MR. BLOCKER: Representative Kinsey,
21 we've -- the Pennsylvania State Police, in
22 partnership with the Philadelphia Police
23 Department and principally with the HIDTA
24 initiative, and HIDTA is an acronym for High
25 Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, we work very 34
1 closely with our HIDTA partners, the Drug
2 Enforcement Administration, and the city of
3 Philadelphia Police Department to address the
4 heroin epidemic in the city of Philadelphia.
5 Within the last 45 days, all of
6 high-level law enforcement agencies have been
7 down to that Kensington area, toured it, just to
8 get a sense of the extent or the magnitude of
9 the heroin problem in that area.
10 So as someone that's a former director
11 of the State Police Bureau of Drug Law
12 Enforcement, we have a high degree of interest
13 in drug trafficking in the Commonwealth of
14 Pennsylvania. And through our Drug Law
15 Division, we work in partnerships with law
16 enforcement throughout the Commonwealth in an
17 effort to address drug use and, more
18 importantly, the sale of elicit drugs in the
19 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
20 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Okay. Thank you
21 for that. The other thing you talked about was
22 education. And I know that my colleagues and I
23 from Philadelphia would love to have
24 conversations with you to have members from the
25 Pennsylvania State Police come down to our 35
1 individual districts, and maybe regionally, just
2 to sort of piggy-back on the education part that
3 you're doing. So we look forward to working
4 with you on that.
5 The other thing, Colonel, is, the Liquor
6 Control Board, also in Philadelphia, we have
7 these things called stop-and-gos. And it's been
8 a great concern. In fact, I know that my good
9 friend, Representative Bullock, has legislation
10 that I've co-sponsored to sort of address some
11 of the stop-and-gos.
12 And I guess the question is, How does
13 the Pennsylvania State Police work with the
14 Liquor Control Board to address the
15 stop-and-gos? And, you know, we have many
16 issues where they're selling shots illegally,
17 dependent upon the type of license they might
18 have. But it's just a great concern for some of
19 the communities right there within the
20 Philadelphia district. So how is your
21 department working with the Liquor Control Board
22 to maybe address some of these concerns that
23 have been brought to your attention?
24 MR. BLOCKER: With respect to the
25 stop-and-gos, our Liquor Control Enforcement 36
1 Officers are aware of this issue in the city of
2 Philadelphia. We work in concert with the city
3 PD, City Police Department, in trying to
4 identify those locations where individuals are
5 purchasing alcoholic beverages and leaving
6 facilities, and in many cases, creating public
7 safety issues outside of those agencies or
8 outside of those locations.
9 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Okay. Actually,
10 Colonel, in respect to the Chairman, I notice
11 the red light went on again; so I want to give
12 my colleagues additional time, but I want to say
13 thank you for your answers. I will have some
14 follow-up with you. And thank you, Mr.
15 Chairman.
16 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: You're
17 welcome.
18 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Thank you.
19 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
20 Representative Kampf.
21 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: Thank you, Mr.
22 Chairman. A couple of funds I wanted to ask
23 about. These are restricted accounts. And we
24 got this information from the Governor's
25 Executive Budget Book. 37
1 First one is the Radio Systems
2 Development Project. Could you just tell me
3 what that is?
4 MR. BLOCKER: Sure. I could certainly
5 share some peripheral information with respect
6 to that, but the --
7 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: And it's the
8 restricted account I'm asking about.
9 MR. BLOCKER: Right. The individual
10 that really kind of spearheads that for our
11 department is Major Stackhouse. She could
12 probably provide you with a little more
13 substantive information.
14 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: Okay, Major, I've
15 got 4 and a half minutes.
16 MS. STACKHOUSE: Okay. I'll try to
17 answer it quick. We have -- we utilize
18 restricted funds for upgrading our radio system.
19 Also, assisting counties where we co-locate at
20 radio sites. For example, we're putting in
21 shelters and other types of equipment, DC plants
22 at various locations throughout the
23 Commonwealth. So most of the upgrades are going
24 to microwave sites and our microwave system. So
25 everything gets put back into the STARNet or 38
1 Statewide Radio Network.
2 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: So that fund, we
3 noticed goes up from 1 million last year to 4.2
4 million. Where does that 3.2 million come from?
5 MS. STACKHOUSE: Some of the money in
6 our restricted funds, we get money from
7 marketing some of our --
8 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: I'm asking about
9 this fund, Radio Systems Development Project,
10 where does that 3.2 million come from?
11 MS. STACKHOUSE: That -- I don't have
12 that information right offhand, where it comes
13 from.
14 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: Okay. Is it
15 money from private payers or local
16 municipalities?
17 MS. STACKHOUSE: No. We do not charge
18 counties.
19 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: Okay. Could you
20 -- why is it going to up by 3.2 million this
21 year?
22 MS. STACKHOUSE: I'm not aware that it
23 -- of that particular fund; but I can say some
24 of our restricted funds, we do receive money as
25 a result of commercial carriers co-locating on 39
1 our towers.
2 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: Okay. I would be
3 very interested with respect to that fund, what
4 the purpose of the -- I'm sorry, what the reason
5 for the increase is and where it comes from.
6 Tower management restricted account, that
7 increases from 300,000 to 1.7 million. Why is
8 it increasing and where does that money come
9 from?
10 MS. STACKHOUSE: That's the one I just
11 mentioned about commercial carriers on our
12 towers, and that's a monthly revenue stream and
13 it gets reinvested in --
14 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: Why is it going
15 up, do you think? Why is that going up from
16 300,000 to 1.7 million for the coming year?
17 MS. STACKHOUSE: Because each month we
18 receive revenues from commercial carriers that
19 are on our sites, which gets reinvested into our
20 radio system.
21 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: And have we added
22 commercial sites? Is that why the funds are
23 increasing so much?
24 MS. STACKHOUSE: We do, on occasion,
25 when it's approved by my bureau. Under 40
1 stringent circumstances, we do add commercial
2 carriers.
3 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: Okay. Could you
4 send us an itemization of that increase, where
5 it comes from? And then just back to the crime
6 lab user fees, that one's going up from 1.1
7 million to 5.9 million. I think Representative
8 Delozier learned that that comes from
9 defendants. But why is it going up so much,
10 4.8 million?
11 MR. BUCAR: Representative, that -- the
12 fluctuation in the amount of money in that fund
13 is a function of collectability and collections
14 that occur after court dispositions.
15 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: Okay. But that's
16 a very big increase. So can you just explain to
17 me why it would go up so much?
18 MR. BUCAR: I can't address specifically
19 that amount, but I can tell you there are times
20 where it takes -- there are periods of months
21 before collections are realized from defendants.
22 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: Okay.
23 MR. BUCAR: And so that goes up and down
24 and fluctuates. But as far as that specific
25 increase, I can't speak to at this point. 41
1 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: If you could, I
2 mean, I get it, right, sometimes it comes in,
3 sometimes it doesn't. But if you could give us
4 a little bit of detail on that. Thank you.
5 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
6 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
7 Representative Donatucci.
8 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: Thank you,
9 Mr. Chairman. And good morning, Commissioner.
10 Down here (indicating). And thank you for being
11 here today. I want to go back to the issue of
12 stop-and-gos. It's really an issue in
13 Philadelphia. You know, with the expansion of
14 restaurant and the E licenses, we're seeing more
15 and more of them.
16 In your testimony, you stated that you
17 have 17 LCE officers statewide?
18 MR. BLOCKER: Yes. Now, there are a
19 number of what we call Liquor Enforcement
20 Officers. They're not Pennsylvania State
21 Troopers. They specifically are tasked with
22 liquor enforcement, so there's 140 of them. The
23 17 that I referred to are just Troopers.
24 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: Okay. So do
25 you know where they're assigned throughout the 42
1 community, or in the Commonwealth, I should say,
2 in the northeast, the southwest, the northwest;
3 do you know what the breakdown is?
4 MR. BLOCKER: There is an LCE office in
5 the city of Philadelphia, and there's a
6 contingent of LEOs and enlisted members in that
7 office but they're spread around the
8 Commonwealth.
9 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: Okay. And do
10 you know how many actions were taken in
11 Philadelphia by the LCE in 2016?
12 MR. BLOCKER: I don't believe we have
13 that data, but it is something that we can
14 provide you.
15 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: Okay. And in
16 the past, the Liquor Control Board was
17 responsible for enforcement activities. Could
18 net savings be realized by shifting
19 administrative functions of liquor enforcement
20 to the LCB?
21 MR. BLOCKER: Well, my -- I guess my
22 answer to that is, legislatively, that probably
23 is something that needs to be addressed there.
24 As an agency as we see it, right now that's our
25 responsibility to address liquor enforcement 43
1 issues in the Commonwealth.
2 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: Okay. Now, I
3 want to move over a little bit to gaming
4 machines. During numerous hearings, we
5 consistently hear that there are numerous
6 illegal gaming machines throughout the
7 Commonwealth.
8 Do you have any specific task force that
9 works with the LCB on combatting that issue?
10 MR. BLOCKER: In terms of illegal
11 devices in liquor establishments?
12 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: Yes.
13 MR. BLOCKER: Yeah. Our LCE officers,
14 when they are visiting establishments, they look
15 for not only violations of the liquor code, but
16 also other criminal activity that they may
17 witness and/or experience.
18 They will essentially coordinate that
19 with other departments units to address that
20 when and where necessary. So what we have here
21 is gambling in Pennsylvania is illegal unless
22 it's, you know, within, you know, casinos, horse
23 racing, bingo, lottery and small games of
24 chance.
25 But to speak directly to your question, 44
1 if criminal activity is witnessed in a
2 particular location, we will take enforcement
3 action on that.
4 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: Okay. Do you
5 confiscate the machines?
6 MR. BLOCKER: If they are illegal, yes.
7 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: Okay. Do you
8 know how many throughout the Commonwealth?
9 MR. BLOCKER: I do not have that
10 information readily available.
11 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: All right.
12 And lastly, I'd like to address the age
13 compliance program where you send 18 to 20 year
14 olds into establishments to purchase liquor.
15 This program reported that 35 percent of
16 the establishments failed compliance and they
17 were selling liquor to underage buyers in 2016.
18 Statutory authority for this program expires at
19 the end of this year. How effective is this
20 program at reducing sales of alcohol to underage
21 persons and should the program be renewed,
22 changed, or allowed to expire?
23 MR. BLOCKER: One of the activities
24 taken on by our LCE agents is to monitor
25 underage sales of alcohol from establishments. 45
1 It's something that we take very seriously as an
2 agency. My sense is there's a multitude of
3 variables there, but we do have enforcement
4 initiatives that we periodically engage in,
5 particularly in the city of Philadelphia looking
6 for sales to minors.
7 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: Okay. Thank
8 you. So it is a success, in your opinion?
9 MR. BLOCKER: I believe it is, yes.
10 REPRESENTATIVE DONATUCCI: All right.
11 Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
12 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
13 Representative Roae.
14 REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: Thank you. Thank
15 you, Mr. Chairman. And good morning to all of
16 you who are members of the Pennsylvania State
17 Police. Thank you for your service. As you all
18 know, the McKinsey Report came out a few weeks
19 ago. And one area in the McKinsey Report
20 suggested that maybe it should be considered
21 reducing the number of buildings that you folks
22 have.
23 Right now, there's 16 troops with a
24 total of 81 stations and, you know, most people
25 when they need the State Police, most people, 46
1 including Legislators, you know, we want
2 well-trained, qualified, dedicated officers to
3 come and assist. Most people don't give that
4 much thought to how many buildings you folks
5 operate out of. I was wondering, have you guys
6 had a chance to evaluate the McKinsey Report to
7 see what kind of impact reducing the number of
8 buildings would have?
9 MR. BLOCKER: We have met with
10 representatives from the McKinsey Group. We've
11 talked about a myriad of issues. And when I say
12 myriad of issues, I'm talking about from
13 personnel to physical locations, vehicles, kind
14 of run the gamut there.
15 We're always looking at whether we are
16 strategically properly located in the
17 Commonwealth. Right now, we believe that we
18 are. But as I indicated, one of the principle
19 tenets of 21st Century policing is technology.
20 And with the, you know, enhanced
21 technology in terms of communications, such
22 things as Trooper's vehicle being really his or
23 her office, the mobile office capability, the
24 mobile identification capability, that's a huge
25 plus for 21st Century policing. 47
1 That may, and I emphasize the word may,
2 cause us to look at our -- is our footprint
3 from installation perspective, can that be
4 improved on? And we're always looking for ways
5 to improve how the Department is positioned in
6 the Commonwealth.
7 You know, there are -- from county to
8 county, things change in terms of number of
9 installations. So my answer is, we're always
10 looking at our footprint when it comes to
11 installation. There are a lot of drivers there,
12 such as leases and those kinds of things.
13 REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: Okay. And then a
14 follow-up question: When a Trooper is, you
15 know, working a shift, how much of the time are
16 they actually in the barracks and how much of
17 the time are they on patrol, usually? And when
18 somebody calls 911 for help, are the officers
19 usually responding from patrol or from the
20 barracks?
21 MR. BLOCKER: I'm glad you asked that
22 question, Representative. The short answer is,
23 the Commonwealth is broken up into patrol zones;
24 and Troopers are in those patrol zones on active
25 patrol and that's where they respond to calls 48
1 for service. Very rarely, very rarely are they
2 responding from the barracks. Again, there's
3 where technology will enhance the Department's
4 position.
5 REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: Excuse me for
6 interrupting. I'm almost out of time, so I want
7 to ask one last question. Just to kind of
8 follow up on what you said earlier, tell us a
9 little bit about, like, if each officer -- if
10 each State Trooper was assigned their own
11 vehicle, would it be feasible to, you know,
12 teleconference before the start of the shift?
13 They wouldn't have to drive all the way to the
14 barracks, then turn around and drive all the way
15 back to their patrol zone.
16 If each Trooper had their own vehicle,
17 you know, could that be more efficient, spending
18 more money to have officers and more vehicles
19 and less money on buildings?
20 MR. BLOCKER: That is an aspect of 21st
21 Century policing that we are looking very
22 seriously at. There is great utility in what we
23 call a trooper's mobile office, so they can
24 respond quickly to calls for service or various
25 incidents; so it is an aspect of the patrol 49
1 function that we are looking at very, very
2 closely.
3 REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: All right. Thank
4 you, sir.
5 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
6 Representative Bullock.
7 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: Thank you, Mr.
8 Chairman. Good morning, Colonel. To your left
9 (indicating). Good morning. How are you?
10 MR. BLOCKER: Good morning.
11 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: Good. So like
12 my other Philadelphian colleagues, I'm a little
13 bit obsessed with the stop-and-go issue myself;
14 so I just want to follow up with one short
15 question. In regards to that southeast -- the
16 Philadelphia office, do you know how many
17 officers, LCE officers, are actually assigned to
18 that unit?
19 MR. BLOCKER: I don't have that number
20 right here in front of me. We can certainly
21 share that with you. However, in the city of
22 Philadelphia, I'm pretty comfortable saying that
23 it's well staffed. I just don't have the exact
24 number of LCE officers and Troopers that are
25 there. 50
1 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: The reason why
2 I ask is because, often when our offices call
3 for assistance to look at enforcement issues or
4 community organizations do, often the response
5 we get is that there's not enough staff for
6 enforcement or that enforcement is an issue.
7 So I would really appreciate looking
8 into that number and maybe talking to your
9 department about how -- or to the State Police
10 about how we can increase the staff in that
11 area, because it is a significant issue. It's a
12 quality of life issue.
13 And, perhaps -- I think every office, we
14 get called about enforcement issues every day;
15 and so I really would like to look further into
16 that. I appreciate that.
17 MR. BLOCKER: Will do.
18 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: In regards to
19 staffing -- and this was another question that
20 was asked earlier, I believe, by my colleague
21 Representative Flynn, in regards to retirement
22 and attrition and keeping your troopers, do you
23 know or anticipate how many new troopers will
24 come on in this fiscal year?
25 MR. BLOCKER: Yes. We believe that we 51
1 will have a minimum of three cadet classes for
2 fiscal year '17-'18, and that will be
3 approximately 115 new troopers per class. So
4 that's what we're looking at, somewhere between
5 300 and maybe 310.
6 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: Okay. And so
7 now looking a little deeper into what our State
8 Troopers look like, I know you patrol the entire
9 Commonwealth and there's diverse communities
10 across the entire Commonwealth. What are our
11 breakdowns as far -- and I know you make a lot
12 of efforts in your recruitment of your cadet
13 classes, but what are the breakdowns as far as
14 women and communities of color represented in
15 your workforce, both as troopers and as you move
16 up in rank?
17 MR. BLOCKER: Right. That's -- I
18 appreciate that question and getting an
19 opportunity to talk about this. We have --
20 we've just wrapped up the most successful
21 recruiting campaign that we've had in years.
22 We actually had over 7,000 members
23 express interest and sign up to take the State
24 Police examination.
25 The actual individuals that took our 52
1 examination was about 3500. So I'm encouraged
2 by the fact that we've put diversity under a
3 microscope within the Pennsylvania State Police.
4 Currently, minorities make up about 6
5 and a half percent of the Department's
6 complement and women make up about 6.2 percent
7 of our complement to date.
8 We have enhanced our recruiting efforts.
9 There is now a recruiter in each one of our 15
10 field troops, and their responsibility is to be
11 visible in every municipality, looking for
12 opportunities to recruit. We have such things
13 as Come Get to Know Us Day, to enhance our
14 recruiting efforts.
15 Probably the most important thing that
16 we've done in the last year is, our recruiting
17 efforts -- our recruiting detail have been
18 provided a budget to assist in our recruiting
19 efforts.
20 We just started a class about a week or
21 so ago, and our -- the number of women and
22 minorities in that class are as follows: 13
23 percent of that class that went in on March the
24 5th is 13 percent minority. And if you look at
25 minority and females, it's about 22 percent. 53
1 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: Thank you for
2 sharing those numbers. And just a quick note,
3 and if you have any statistic about this note, I
4 would appreciate it, as well --
5 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
6 Representative, I've got to cut you off there.
7 REPRESENTATIVE BULLOCK: -- just the
8 growing Spanish-speaking population, I hope you
9 address that as well.
10 MR. BLOCKER: Yes, we are.
11 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
12 Representative Christiana.
13 REPRESENTATIVE CHRISTIANA:
14 Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And good morning;
15 thank you for your service. Major Stackhouse,
16 I have some questions that probably will be
17 directed towards you.
18 Major, I don't think it's a secret that
19 government contracts are frequently over budget
20 and late. But the poster child for this in
21 Pennsylvania, in my opinion, is the statewide
22 radio system. The outrageous reality is that
23 the system's implementation is now going on 15
24 years, 400 percent over the initial RFP amount.
25 And if that's not bad enough, the State 54
1 Troopers, all the state agencies are still
2 shackled with an inadequate radio system. And I
3 know I'm telling you something that you already
4 know.
5 The terrifying reality is that
6 inadequate radio systems put our heros in law
7 enforcement at risk of not being able to secure
8 backup and risk of harm. But before we can just
9 move forward and focus on how to fix this, I do
10 think we need to look at the sins of the past
11 and the procurement process that has gotten us
12 to this point.
13 And I don't think we can just chalk up
14 the past mistakes to political malpractice. I
15 do think there needs to be some answers to how
16 the implementation has taken 15 years and 400
17 percent over budget and there's still an
18 inadequate system.
19 And let me preface my question with
20 this: I know that this wasn't -- the
21 Pennsylvania State Police that has overseen the
22 implementation of the statewide radio system.
23 In fact, this has been laid on your lap and I'm
24 thankful that all of you are working on finally
25 fixing this. But can you identify any 55
1 investigations that you know are going on about
2 the current statewide radio systems
3 implementation and budgeting?
4 MS. STACKHOUSE: Well, -- oh, I'm sorry.
5 MR. BLOCKER: If I may? The State
6 Police has initiated an audit by an independent
7 state agency into the preventive and demand
8 maintenance expenditures. We believe that's a
9 prudent thing to do, and we're exploring every
10 and all civil remedies to address that.
11 It is -- I can't emphasize how
12 critically important a comprehensive 21st
13 Century radio system is to public safety.
14 Major?
15 REPRESENTATIVE CHRISTIANA: Just because
16 my time is limited, can you let me know, was
17 that -- did you answer that there are civil
18 investigations going forward about the
19 procurement process over the last 15 years? Is
20 there an investigation into -- that you can rule
21 out criminal misconduct in that procurement
22 process, or can you give the Committee any
23 insight before we can move forward into the P25
24 system and federal systems that are on the
25 horizon? 56
1 MS. STACKHOUSE: I can tell you that
2 I've personally held accountable the vendor that
3 we've dealt with over the past 15 years. As the
4 Colonel stated, we initiated an audit by the
5 Office of Budget to look into how the money was
6 spent, specifically, for preventive and demand
7 maintenance activities.
8 We are discussing all civil remedies
9 with our Office of Chief Counsel, and I
10 personally entered two
11 contract-of-responsibility programs entry
12 regarding grounding issues, as well as
13 preventive and demand maintenance activities.
14 When I took over in 2015, I stopped 4.7
15 million in cell site construction so that we
16 would no longer spend money into a proprietary
17 radio system.
18 REPRESENTATIVE CHRISTIANA: Thank you
19 for your leadership. And I would -- I think the
20 taxpayers of this Commonwealth and the users of
21 the system deserve some answers and why 15 years
22 later we still have an inadequate system.
23 But with that being said, moving
24 forward, I know the Department -- or excuse me
25 -- the Pennsylvania State Police is overseeing a 57
1 new system, the P25 system, that will hopefully
2 allow your men and women to -- and all state
3 agencies, like the Department of Corrections, to
4 transition to a better system.
5 Can you briefly comment on the FIRSTNet
6 System and the Department's interaction with
7 those in the federal government on the FIRSTNet
8 System that should be coming in the years to
9 come?
10 MR. BLOCKER: Major?
11 MS. STACKHOUSE: Well, I'm the single
12 point of contact for FIRSTNet for Pennsylvania;
13 and we have gone around Pennsylvania educating
14 counties, county task forces, about the FIRSTNet
15 mission and vision of providing a broadband
16 network.
17 Right now, FIRSTNet has not announced
18 its private partner. I expect that to occur
19 sometime by the end of March, beginning of
20 April.
21 And with that being said, Pennsylvania's
22 patiently waiting for our state plan. And then
23 I'd be in a better position to tell you how
24 we're going to receive this state plan and what
25 steps we're going to take to implement or opt 58
1 out.
2 REPRESENTATIVE CHRISTIANA: Thank you.
3 Mr. Chairman, thank you. And thank you for your
4 service again.
5 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: I want to
6 just -- again, who is the independent agency
7 investigating this, please?
8 MS. STACKHOUSE: The audit is the Office
9 of Budget. I asked them.
10 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Okay. And I
11 just want to add on as Chairman of this, I've
12 got to be honest, as we're going through this
13 appropriations situation, I've been reading a
14 lot in the papers about your hearing in the
15 Senate. I don't know how the House or the
16 Senate can appropriate more dollars for a system
17 that has been a boondoggle $800 million.
18 So I'm looking forward to hearing some
19 kind of a full investigation about this before
20 we appropriate $50 million more on a system
21 we've already spent 800 million on.
22 So I don't know if there's any more
23 comments, Commissioner, or any of you have on
24 that. But I've got to be honest, for me, trying
25 to protect taxpayers' money, if we have a system 59
1 that doesn't protect the lives of our State
2 Troopers, and there's nobody here who thinks
3 higher of our State Police force than I, I think
4 we all do, to be honest with you; but it's a
5 real concern to me that we're putting money into
6 a company who is not protecting our lives and
7 putting the lives of our Troopers at risk, why
8 give another dime until we have real answers
9 about when this is going to be fixed and that
10 our lives of our State Troopers aren't put in
11 any kind of jeopardy?
12 And I'm real concerned about that,
13 Commissioner --
14 MR. BLOCKER: Sure.
15 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: -- that, you
16 know, you spend $800 million. That's a lot of
17 money. You're now approaching a billion dollars
18 spent on this. So I welcome a comment.
19 MR. BLOCKER: Yeah. I'll just comment
20 and turn it over to Major Stackhouse. It's
21 clear to me that there was some missteps early
22 on, prior to my coming back into the department.
23 It is a critical public safety area when you
24 start talking about the State Police's ability
25 to communicate. It is a challenge. It's 60
1 something that we are looking at very
2 critically.
3 Major?
4 MS. STACKHOUSE: I'm a taxpayer, too, so
5 I take this very seriously.
6 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: I know you
7 do.
8 MS. STACKHOUSE: But part of that 800
9 million, you have to take a look and ask
10 yourself, were there any positive investments?
11 And I can say that there were. For example, the
12 Commonwealth owns 173 high-profile steel towers.
13 We also have a robust microwave system that,
14 quite frankly, other states are very envious of.
15 Part of that big amount also includes 74
16 million in federal grant money that we use to
17 upgrade our microwave system and also built and
18 deployed a UHF and 700 megahertz overlay for the
19 state to augment OpenSky.
20 Now, I'm not going to sit here and say
21 that OpenSky was a great investment. I don't
22 believe it was. But for me moving forward, you
23 have my full commitment to deploy a reliable
24 radio system; and that is the P25 system.
25 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: And is that 61
1 where the money that is in the budget right now
2 is directed, to that system that you're putting
3 in?
4 MS. STACKHOUSE: Yes, sir, as well as
5 understanding that with any radio system, it
6 doesn't matter what vendor's involved, STARNet
7 is something big and encompasses more than just
8 the land mobile radio. We're looking at just
9 operating costs, personnel costs, salaries,
10 benefits, maintenance of that system. You're
11 looking at utility bills.
12 So that encompasses that 800 million
13 which we need to spend anyway, every year.
14 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Very good,
15 Major. Thank you.
16 With that, Representative Daley.
17 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: Thank you, Mr.
18 Chairman. Colonel Blocker, over to your left
19 (indicating).
20 MR. BLOCKER: Oh, okay.
21 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: Thank you for
22 being here today. You mentioned in your
23 testimony -- and I'm going to ask this question,
24 but I'm going to ask for not an answer right
25 now, but if you could provide the information to 62
1 the Committee, because I have another question I
2 want to ask, so I don't want to take time.
3 But you mentioned over 600,000 traffic
4 citations. So what I was wondering was, if you
5 can provide the Committee members with a
6 breakdown of citations related to commercial
7 vehicles, like the type of citation and type of
8 road on which the citations occurred? Can you
9 do that? Not right now though. Not right now,
10 just if we could get that in writing after, you
11 know, it's sent to the Committee.
12 MR. BLOCKER: Yeah, that will be a real
13 challenge for us, looking back over a year to
14 try to discern, you know, commercial vehicles
15 versus noncommercial vehicles.
16 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: All right. So
17 maybe I can have a conversation with you to see
18 what is possible to get.
19 MR. BLOCKER: Very good.
20 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: Thanks. Okay.
21 So my other question is: I just want to say
22 that I agree with you that it's crucial that the
23 Pennsylvania State Police be adequately funded.
24 And as a former Borough council member,
25 I have a strong belief that public safety is a 63
1 core -- and as a current State Rep, public
2 safety is a core function of government; and I
3 believe that it extends to all different levels
4 of government.
5 So you may be able to guess that my
6 question is going to be on the municipal
7 coverage fee and the Motor License Fund. So I
8 know that there have been a number of proposals
9 the Governor has proposed.
10 There have been legislative proposals in
11 the past, and they vary on how quickly the fees
12 ramp up, how much they should be, which
13 municipalities they should apply to; and so
14 there's a variety of different issues.
15 But what I'm looking to you for is, do
16 you have recommendations about the best way to
17 structure the fee on municipalities, and what
18 would a proposal need to include to be efficient
19 and effective for law enforcement?
20 MR. BLOCKER: Well, Representative, in
21 partnership with the Governor, the decision was
22 made for it to be $25 per capita for those
23 communities where the Pennsylvania State Police
24 are full-time or provide full-time services.
25 My sense is that those funds, we 64
1 believe, are important. I think it's going to
2 assist us with putting through our Academy --
3 classes in the Academy. And my sense is, is
4 that as a primary law enforcement agency in the
5 Commonwealth and the nature of our highway
6 traffic safety mandate, the state of our
7 infrastructure in terms of our roadways, there's
8 some challenges for the Commonwealth going
9 forward to improve that.
10 So my sense is that I know there's been
11 a lot made about the $25 fee. We believe it's
12 something that we can work with to facilitate
13 putting cadet classes through and also working
14 with our partners at the Pennsylvania Department
15 of Transportation to attempt to improve our
16 highway infrastructure.
17 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: So you're on
18 board with the Governor's proposal for the fee
19 to the municipalities that don't use -- or that
20 don't have full-time police departments?
21 MR. BLOCKER: Yes.
22 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: Okay. And so
23 it's a smaller amount of money coming back than
24 what you estimated the cost was. But I also had
25 a question -- so the $234 which was the per 65
1 capita cost, so I know that, like, you provide
2 services to all police departments, you know,
3 all municipalities and all police departments
4 across the state. Does that $234 include any of
5 what other municipalities are getting, at no
6 cost to them? Is that a clear question?
7 MR. BLOCKER: I'm not sure I understand
8 that. The $234 figure was, you know, derived
9 from population that has their own police
10 agencies; and it was more of, you know, just
11 some research by us using numbers and --
12 population numbers, for the most part.
13 My sense is, is that we were more
14 concerned about what would be equitable for
15 those municipalities where the State Police were
16 full-time at.
17 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: So it's
18 comparison --
19 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
20 Representative, I'm going to have to cut you off
21 there.
22 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: All right. Thank
23 you.
24 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Second round,
25 if you want. 66
1 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: Thank you very
2 much. Thank you, Colonel.
3 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
4 Representative Keller.
5 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Thank you,
6 Representative. And thank you, Commissioner,
7 and panel. And I want to say thank you to all
8 the professional people at the Pennsylvania
9 State Police. All our Troopers are the best in
10 the world, and I truly believe that.
11 So my comments are going to revolve
12 around the local charge, also, and where we
13 expend our State Police resources. Because I
14 know the State Police and the way you operate, I
15 believe is, you like to operate off of facts and
16 certainties. I believe that's true. And here
17 in the Capitol, we like to operate off of
18 emotion and other things.
19 So I want to try and understand. You
20 had given us some numbers about the 70,000
21 criminal arrests, the Special Emergency Response
22 Team, HDES, and CLRT. Do we have a breakdown of
23 where those -- and I don't need it right now,
24 but if we could get a breakdown of the
25 municipalities where those calls and arrests and 67
1 so forth happened, it would be, I think, helpful
2 to us in making policy decisions on how we make
3 sure you have an adequate amount of funding.
4 I'm going more toward an effort in a
5 municipality versus just arbitrarily picking a
6 number and saying, since you don't have a local
7 force, you're going to pay this amount of money.
8 Because I don't believe that if we charge the
9 money -- and this would be a question, I guess,
10 for you. If we charge the money to the
11 municipalities without State Police coverage,
12 are they going to -- are you going to put
13 additional people to patrol in those areas, or
14 are they going to get the same level of service
15 they're receiving now?
16 MR. BLOCKER: Yeah, the -- for those
17 municipalities we're full-time, they are
18 included in our patrol zone coverage. We
19 handle, obviously, traffic enforcement, as well
20 as criminal investigative related matters.
21 As I indicated previously, those
22 municipalities where we're primary, they are
23 part of our patrol zones; so there is a trooper
24 on patrol there 24/7.
25 Now, clearly, there are multiple 68
1 variables as to where a trooper might be at any
2 given time; but they would be assigned to a
3 particular zone.
4 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Yeah. Yeah, I
5 understand that. But I represent a county that
6 has no State Police barracks in the county.
7 MR. BLOCKER: Right.
8 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: The only way
9 they get over there is if there's a call or if
10 they happen to be on a patrol. So they wouldn't
11 be getting the level of service that you
12 mentioned you use to derive the $234 a person,
13 because you use that on a municipality that had
14 full-time service.
15 MR. BLOCKER: Right.
16 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: So I'm looking
17 at -- and again, can you provide me with the
18 information on the breakdown of those items that
19 I first discussed? I mean, I don't need it now.
20 But can you -- do you have that information?
21 MR. BLOCKER: Could you just highlight
22 the issues again?
23 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: It was the
24 70,000 criminal arrests, the special emergency
25 response team. There was 237 requests. You had 69
1 the Hazardous Device and Explosive Section, the
2 CLRT, SHIELD. If you could break that down into
3 municipalities, where those services were
4 actually used. I'm encouraged that we're
5 looking at the records management system,
6 because that would give us the tool to charge
7 where the services are actually being used.
8 Because to say somebody's not paying their fair
9 share simply because they don't have crime in
10 their municipality and don't require your
11 services there, I don't think is quite an
12 accurate depiction of how we do it.
13 Because if we're looking at making sure
14 you have the adequate funding, we should be
15 looking at where you're expending your resources
16 to make sure that the funding's coming out of
17 those areas, rather than just mining for
18 dollars, is what I call it, across the
19 Commonwealth simply because we can assume that
20 there's more resources spent in those areas
21 because they don't have a State Police -- or a
22 local police presence.
23 I would assume you also respond to calls
24 and drive through municipalities that have
25 police coverage? 70
1 MR. BLOCKER: Sure.
2 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Yeah. So that's
3 -- so, you know -- because you have troopers in
4 the city of Philadelphia, correct?
5 MR. BLOCKER: We do have a location in
6 the city of Philadelphia, correct.
7 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Right. And they
8 respond to calls in Philadelphia whether they're
9 patrolling in and out of the city or other
10 areas?
11 MR. BLOCKER: We assist Philadelphia
12 Police Department when and where necessary, and
13 we do patrol part of the interstate highway in
14 the city of Philadelphia.
15 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Okay. Question
16 I would have: Do we know a breakdown of calls
17 per municipality? Is there a way we could get
18 that from across the Commonwealth to say that
19 we've responded to X amount of calls, other than
20 traffic stuff, but just calls that have come in
21 for other law enforcement in the municipalities
22 across the Commonwealth?
23 Is there a way to get that, when a car's
24 dispatched, dispatch records or something like
25 that? 71
1 MR. BLOCKER: Well, we could probably
2 share, you know, calls for service in particular
3 municipalities without any degree of
4 specificity.
5 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: But you do --
6 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: That will be
7 it.
8 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: -- respond to
9 calls in all of those, so thank you.
10 MR. BLOCKER: Exactly.
11 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
12 Representative Krueger-Braneky.
13 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER-BRANEKY: Thank
14 you, Mr. Chairman. Hi, Colonel. Hi,
15 Commissioners. Thank you so much for joining
16 us here today. Today is International Women's
17 Day, and I've got a question for you about
18 domestic violence.
19 The statistics are staggering: One in
20 three women will experience some form of
21 domestic violence by an intimate partner over
22 the course of their lifetime. Every 9 seconds,
23 a woman in the US is assaulted or beaten. The
24 cost of domestic violation exceeds $8.3 billion
25 annually. And here in Pennsylvania, in 2011, 72
1 which was the last data that I could find, over
2 66 percent of our domestic violence fatalities
3 were tied to gun violence.
4 And we know that even recently we've
5 lost officers in the line of duty due to acts of
6 domestic violence. So in your testimony,
7 Colonel, you talked about the 1.1 million
8 background checks for firearms that were
9 conducted through the PIC System, our state
10 background check system, which resulted in
11 13,196 denials; and you also talked about the
12 different reasons why these could be caught in
13 the system. And one of those was from
14 Protection From Abuse Orders.
15 So can you talk about the data on
16 Protection From Abuse orders? How does that get
17 into our background check system, the PIC
18 System, and how frequently is it updated?
19 MR. BLOCKER: The frequency update is,
20 you know -- without stepping out on a limb in
21 saying, you know, it occurs on the fifth of
22 every month, it is very regular. And that
23 information, to the best of my knowledge, is
24 gleaned from the county-wide basis.
25 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER-BRANEKY: From a 73
1 county-wide basis. Okay. So at least my
2 monthly from county-wide data. And so those
3 Protection From Abuse orders are going into our
4 existing PIC System to make sure that folks with
5 a PFA against them are not actually able to
6 purchase a firearm; is that correct?
7 MR. BLOCKER: I was just passed a note
8 here. Approximately 1300 Protection From Abuse
9 Orders entered into CLEAN, our CLEAN System. So
10 it is something that we are particularly
11 attentive to and is part of the Pennsylvania
12 Instant Check System to ensure that, you know,
13 that information is available when potential
14 firearms vendors are checking our system.
15 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER-BRANEKY: And we
16 sometimes hear from Legislators here in
17 Harrisburg that we don't actually need this
18 Pennsylvania Instant Check System, that there's
19 an existing national system that does the job.
20 So can you tell me, is the national
21 system, the NIC System, are they entering the
22 same county-wide data about Protection From
23 Abuse Orders for Pennsylvania?
24 MR. BLOCKER: Pennsylvania's one of 12
25 or 13 states that is what we call a 74
1 point-of-contact state. This gives us greater
2 flexibility and greater control, if you will,
3 over the data that we're using with respect to
4 sharing with firearms dealers.
5 As I indicated, we conducted 1,137,000
6 checks and, of course, about 13,200 of them were
7 denied in 2016. I think the -- to answer your
8 specific question about PICS versus NICS, and
9 NICS being the National Instant Check System, we
10 have greater methodology, greater record-keeping
11 in Pennsylvania that we are responsible for as
12 it relates to, you know, firearms checks.
13 It's a little more control over that
14 data to ensure that we have the necessary --
15 bring the necessary resources to bear, so that
16 in Pennsylvania we are in a position to ensure
17 that we're stepping on all the right bases.
18 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER-BRANEKY: Thank
19 you, Colonel. And I also note in your testimony
20 that another reason for denials is prior
21 disqualifying mental-health commitments. And I
22 note that there's been some new legislation at
23 the national level where the President actually
24 signed a resolution that would nullify a piece
25 of the NIC System where the Social Security 75
1 Administration would no longer be presenting
2 information on certain mentally-ill persons into
3 the NIC System.
4 So does that mean that we would be
5 collecting data through our PIC System on folks
6 with mental-health issues that shouldn't be able
7 to purchase firearms that wouldn't be covered
8 under the NIC System?
9 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
10 Representative, I'm going to cut you off there.
11 So if you would like a second round to finish
12 getting the answer to that or if we can in
13 writing or whatever.
14 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER-BRANEKY: Is he
15 not able to answer the question?
16 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: You didn't
17 get your second question out before the red
18 light went on.
19 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER-BRANEKY: I would
20 like a second --
21 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: I'm trying to
22 stick to that kind of fairness system. But if
23 you want a second round, I'd be glad to let him
24 answer that.
25 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER-BRANEKY: I would 76
1 appreciate that.
2 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: I'll tell you
3 what I'll do.
4 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER-BRANEKY: Okay.
5 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: I'll let him
6 answer the question.
7 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER-BRANEKY: Thank
8 you, Mr. Chairman. I really appreciate that.
9 Colonel.
10 MR. BLOCKER: We have tremendous
11 confidence in our PIC System. We believe it is
12 appropriate in Pennsylvania to be a
13 point-of-contact state. We are in a position to
14 use various databases we use to ensure that the
15 necessary information is provided to prospective
16 gun vendors.
17 REPRESENTATIVE KRUEGER-BRANEKY: I
18 appreciate that. And I appreciate the latitude,
19 Mr. Chairman. This information is literally
20 about saving the lives of people in
21 Pennsylvania, including women who are victims of
22 domestic violence; so I appreciate the answer.
23 Thank you for all you're doing.
24 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
25 Representative Knowles. 77
1 REPRESENTATIVE KNOWLES: Thank you, Mr.
2 Chairman. Commissioner, over here (indicating).
3 Let me start by saying that anything that I ask
4 or anything that I say, I have nothing but
5 respect for the Pennsylvania State Police.
6 I was a local back in the stone ages,
7 and a full-timer; but I just feel that we need
8 to talk about the issue that the gentleman from
9 Beaver County talked about. Okay. We all know
10 that back in 1996, and I was a county
11 commissioner, we were tickled pink, Act 148
12 authorized initial funding for a communication
13 infrastructure, which was much needed.
14 But yet we're talking about spending
15 $800 million, I mean, $800 million that I know
16 of nothing that we can show for it. I know of
17 absolutely nothing that we can show for it.
18 People ask me -- and we're sitting here
19 and we're talking about saving dollars, nickles,
20 pennies, so that we can balance a budget and
21 still take care of the needs of the people of
22 Pennsylvania.
23 And with all due respect, Commissioner,
24 I heard you talk about audits. I heard you talk
25 about civil reports or civil action, that kind 78
1 of thing. And what I would ask of you, is to
2 give serious consideration to a criminal
3 investigation on this particular issue.
4 People are outraged by the fact that we
5 have spent $800 million and we still have an
6 inadequate communication system within the
7 Commonwealth for the Pennsylvania State Police.
8 So I won't -- I just wanted to make that point.
9 I do have one or two quick questions, unless
10 you'd like to comment, sir. I don't want to cut
11 you short.
12 MR. BLOCKER: No, I think you made your
13 point, Representative.
14 REPRESENTATIVE KNOWLES: Okay. Could we
15 talk a little bit about polygraph tests? I was
16 somewhat shocked by the fact that we are
17 eliminating them, and I can't imagine that
18 polygraph tests through the process that they
19 had to find some improper behavior by
20 candidates, maybe even some criminal stuff; and
21 I just am trying to understand why we would stop
22 giving polygraph tests to candidates for the
23 Pennsylvania State Police.
24 MR. BLOCKER: Sure. Thank you for that
25 question, Representative. The Pennsylvania 79
1 State Police Institute of Polygraph for
2 prospective members, in and around 1998. Prior
3 to that, we hired tens of thousands of very fine
4 troopers. I'm proud to say I joined the
5 Department in 1975, the benefit of not having a
6 polygraph examination.
7 My consensus of thought is that we
8 conduct very professional in-depth background
9 investigations on every member of the
10 Pennsylvania State Police, where a trained
11 investigator goes out and conducts an in-depth
12 investigation.
13 My sense is, is that we needed to do a
14 number of things with our selection process.
15 And, quite frankly, our process was very
16 expansive. It would take somewhere between 10
17 to 14 months to bring someone through our
18 entrance requirements, and there were some
19 challenges there.
20 As we all know, polygraph operator is
21 not an exact science, for the most part; and I
22 have full faith and confidence in our background
23 investigators that they're going to go out,
24 conduct comprehensive background investigations
25 and any transgressions that would have come up 80
1 in a candidate's background, we will know that
2 because of the comprehensiveness of the
3 background investigation.
4 REPRESENTATIVE KNOWLES: Commissioner,
5 I'm about to get the hook; and I've got one more
6 question I want to get in, if I could.
7 MR. BLOCKER: Yes.
8 REPRESENTATIVE KNOWLES: As a former
9 cop, I was very disturbed by the elimination of
10 those little stickers on the back of the license
11 plate. That was a very valuable tool when I was
12 a policeman, and I get it with all these plate
13 readers and all that crap. But, I mean, haven't
14 we taken a valuable tool away from all police
15 officers in the Commonwealth? For the sake of a
16 million dollars, we've taken away a very
17 valuable tool. Would you care to comment on
18 that?
19 MR. BLOCKER: Representative, that
20 decision, obviously, rests with the Pennsylvania
21 Department of Transportation. From an
22 enforcement perspective, troopers have the
23 ability to run plates through the radio system
24 in their cars in the event that that becomes
25 necessary; so it just adds a little more of an 81
1 investigative inquiry on our part with respect
2 to running registrations plates on motor
3 vehicles. We can do that from a car. It's not
4 absolutely essential that the sticker is there.
5 REPRESENTATIVE KNOWLES: So everybody
6 has the right to be wrong, Mr. Commissioner.
7 They have the right to be wrong. We're right.
8 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: We're going
9 to cut you off there. Representative Dean.
10 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: Thank you, Mr.
11 Chairman; and thank you, Commissioner. And to
12 all the law enforcement, I say a very inept
13 thank you for all you do for us. I, too, would
14 like to examine the difference between the PIC
15 and the NIC System. You know that session after
16 session we're asked to vote on whether or not to
17 eliminate the PIC System, the Pennsylvania
18 Instant Check System, in favor of the National
19 Instant Check System.
20 I know you work in tandem with the
21 National System. I'd like to explore the
22 differences, and you've identified some. Number
23 one, it's a robust -- PICS is robust; you're
24 doing more than one million background
25 examinations a year. With last year, I guess it 82
1 was, 13,000 denials. I think the year before it
2 was 15,000 denials. Beyond that, I believe you
3 also are very helpful to law enforcement in
4 tracking down persons who have active, open
5 arrest warrants, fugitives from the law.
6 Could you tell us some of those things,
7 as we examine the difference between PICS and
8 NICS and whether or not we should just jettison
9 the PIC System?
10 MR. BLOCKER: Yeah. Well, I'm a strong
11 advocate for our PIC System. Being one of 13
12 states in the country that is a point-of-contact
13 state, the value in ensuring that Second
14 Amendment rights are not infringed upon and are
15 -- that individuals, citizens have the right to
16 purchase firearms, we can facilitate that in
17 Pennsylvania by having a robust system that we
18 can channel our energies and investigative
19 efforts to ensure that we are stepping on all
20 the right bases to ensure that firearm ownership
21 occurs in a timely fashion in the Commonwealth
22 of Pennsylvania.
23 And I think we do that exceedingly well
24 for a point-of-contact state.
25 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: And I would note, 83
1 I was taking a look at the Pennsylvania State
2 Police 2015 Firearms Annual Report. In the
3 opening letter, Colonel, you ended by saying
4 incumbent upon our public safety mission. And I
5 believe our PIC System is well positioned to
6 preclude those prohibited by law to obtain
7 firearms. At the same time, PICS allows those
8 who are legally permitted to possess firearms to
9 do so as efficiently and obtrusively as
10 possible.
11 In your report, you note that many, the
12 vast majority of these checks are completed in
13 under a minute. I think one of the other
14 distinctions, and I want to pair with the
15 question that Representative Krueger-Braneky
16 raised. We have a shifting possible federal
17 policy with the resolution signed by our
18 President to stop the transfer and sharing of
19 information from Social Security to the NIC
20 System on mental capacity. So with that
21 shifting landscape, I think PICS becomes all the
22 more important.
23 And all of this has to do with public
24 safety. I noted in your 2015 violent crimes
25 regarding use of firearms, it was nearly 11,000 84
1 violent crimes using firearms and 600 homicides.
2 Could you talk about, for example, violent
3 crimes using firearms and also how the PIC
4 System specifically, at the point of contact
5 with the possible purchaser, possible
6 prohibitive purchaser, teams up with local law
7 enforcement in a way that national cannot do, to
8 go after those who may be prohibitive
9 purchasers?
10 MR. BLOCKER: Well, if there is a
11 prohibitive purchaser, we will know that
12 instantly. Now, obviously, there's a lot of
13 criminal behavior, criminal activity outside of
14 the PIC System. There are firearms being
15 transferred illegally throughout the
16 Commonwealth, and we are diligent in trying to
17 address that criminal conduct.
18 But in terms of the industry and working
19 with our firearms vendors who are legitimate
20 business entities that really want to do the
21 right thing, I think it's important with
22 Pennsylvania being a point-of-contact state that
23 we're able to facilitate that in furtherance of
24 ensuring Second Amendment rights.
25 We believe we have the infrastructure in 85
1 place with mental-health records, with PFA
2 documents centralized in a location that we can
3 provide very good information in a timely manner
4 that will ensure that individuals trying to
5 purchase firearms in Pennsylvania are doing so
6 legally.
7 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: And I appreciate
8 all that you do, and I ask that you help us
9 partner with you and maybe you could support
10 some of the sensible gun legislation that has
11 been introduced session after session, like
12 closing the background check loophole on those
13 private sales, lost and stolen, gun violence
14 restraining orders, no-fly/no-buy, and also
15 carrying while intoxicated.
16 I hope that you will partner with us so
17 that we can partner with you in making
18 Pennsylvania a safer place.
19 Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
20 MR. BLOCKER: We look forward to that
21 discussion, Representative.
22 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Next up will
23 be Representative Grove.
24 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Thank you, Vice
25 Chairman. Commissioner, Deputy Commissioners, 86
1 thank you so much for joining us. Quick
2 follow-up on firearm checks. We sometimes have
3 FFLs that may call in to try to verify if
4 someone is actual -- would be barred from
5 actually getting a firearm through criminal
6 background. They're unsure.
7 Is there a process in place where they
8 could call and try to do like some kind of
9 pre-verification just to make sure they don't
10 fill out the forms?
11 Once, obviously, it's filled out, it
12 becomes a criminal action if you lie on those
13 forms for background check stuff. So is there a
14 way they could verify before they purchase a
15 firearm or before they fill out the form to make
16 sure they're not a criminal if they accidently
17 fill it out wrong?
18 MR. BUCAR: So the PICS process is to
19 facilitate the transaction of a firearm to an
20 authorized purchaser. Outside the scope of
21 that, it would, essentially -- what you're
22 asking or what you're characterizing would
23 essentially be a criminal history check and
24 would be outside the scope of the PICS process.
25 It wouldn't be authorized for that purpose. 87
1 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Okay. I
2 appreciate that. I do have a question on the
3 Drivewise Program, and I just want to kind of
4 describe it to make sure I have a good
5 understanding. So if I say something inaccurate
6 or incorrect, please correct me.
7 But my understanding is, Drivewise was a
8 company that's been operating in conjunction
9 with the State Police since 2012 to allow
10 commercial vehicles to bypass -- well,
11 prequalified trucks to bypass the state
12 inspection sites but still verify compliance
13 with all requirements electronically as they
14 drive.
15 It was an optional system set up to kind
16 of meet the Federal Motor Carrier
17 Administration's weight enforcements and
18 technology upgrades and maintenance. Currently,
19 my understanding is, there was no cost to the
20 state commercial carriers that wanted to opt in
21 the system, could purchase the system.
22 My understanding is, that is currently
23 not being done in the Commonwealth. Just
24 curious. To me, it just sounded like a win/win
25 situation. It allowed State Police to increase 88
1 compliance without any additional costs. At the
2 same time, allowed commerce to flow freely at a
3 compliance. So what's the status of that
4 currently?
5 MR. BLOCKER: Representative, I'm
6 unfamiliar with that process and/or program.
7 We're very attentive to traffic safety,
8 particularly with commercial motor vehicles
9 moving through the Commonwealth, with the
10 understanding that safety is first and foremost
11 in mind.
12 Anything that precludes, you know,
13 timeliness with respect to safety, would be
14 somewhat of a concern of mine. But I'm
15 unfamiliar with the particular initiative that
16 you're referring to.
17 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Okay. So let me
18 read off a few questions. If you can get back
19 to us on that, it would be great. If there's no
20 cost to the Commonwealth and it saves time for
21 Troopers, why would we not continue this
22 program? My understanding, it is a discontinued
23 program at this point.
24 How many Troopers currently conduct
25 inspections; do you anticipate needing 89
1 additional Troopers for inspections, if not
2 using this system? There is a fear of losing
3 federal funding, potentially $3.5 million in
4 federal funding related to vehicle inspections.
5 Can you verify to see if we are not
6 compliant in some kind of electronic compliance
7 system, if we would or would not lose federal
8 funding?
9 And is it the intention of PSP to try to
10 inspect every truck manually? And if so, what's
11 the process for doing that? So if you can kind
12 of get back to me on those questions, it would
13 be helpful moving forward. Thank you. Thank
14 you, Commissioner. Thank you.
15 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Thank you.
16 We'll move on to Representative Boyle.
17 REPRESENTATIVE BOYLE: Thank you,
18 Commissioner Blocker. I'll try to be as concise
19 -- right here. Right here in the back
20 (indicating). I know we're getting close to
21 noon, so I'll try to be as concise as possible.
22 A comment and a question. First of all,
23 I want to express my whole-hearted support for
24 Governor Wolf's decision, his proposal to charge
25 municipalities who do not actually pay for their 90
1 own local police forces.
2 I come from the city of the first class.
3 I come from the city of Philadelphia. We spend
4 $650 million a year. That was actually Mayor
5 Kenney's proposal on the police just this past
6 year. And even a small borough I represent in
7 Montgomery County, Rockledge, they spend nearly
8 $200,000, a borough of just 2600 people.
9 So I think issues like this, I think it
10 really underscores why there is a discrepancy in
11 this state between what the southeast, the
12 five-county area surrounding the city of
13 Philadelphia, what we pay into the state and
14 what we get out.
15 We're only 30 percent of the population
16 of the state of Pennsylvania, but we contribute
17 over 35 percent of the revenue in the state. So
18 I'm happy Governor Wolf has moved in this
19 direction.
20 My question is related to the heroin
21 addiction issue and specifically law
22 enforcement. In my part of Philadelphia,
23 northeast Philadelphia, so much of the heroin
24 distribution is being run and being financed by
25 largely Russian, former Soviet, ethnic criminal 91
1 gangs.
2 And I was curious to see what the State
3 Police is doing. I know that in your remarks
4 you talked about sort of, you know, cracking
5 down on individual dealers, individuals. I feel
6 as though really when it comes to preventing the
7 drug problem, and specifically heroin, it's
8 really these large drug gangs that we really
9 have to go after. So I'm curious to see what
10 the State Police are doing.
11 MR. BLOCKER: Well, thank you for that
12 question. And the first thing that I would
13 share with you is, we have a tremendous
14 partnership in drug strategies in southeastern
15 Pennsylvania, particularly in the city of
16 Philadelphia, with the Drug Enforcement
17 Administration, as well as the city of
18 Philadelphia Police Department, and
19 representatives from the Attorney General's
20 Office.
21 So we have a strategy that is
22 principally on sharing of intelligence
23 information, without going into any great detail
24 with respect to that. But we do have the
25 requisite resources to address drug 92
1 investigations from the various levels, be that
2 the lowest level at the street level or through
3 interdiction or at the dealer -- the major
4 dealer level.
5 So we take a multi-facetted approach or
6 strategy to drug trafficking throughout the
7 Commonwealth, but particularly in our major
8 cities.
9 REPRESENTATIVE BOYLE: Thank you.
10 (Majority Chairman Saylor returned to
11 the hearing.)
12 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
13 Representative Boback.
14 REPRESENTATIVE BOBACK: I'm up here
15 (indicating). Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You
16 alluded to some of the answers when you gave
17 your introduction, Commissioner. But if you
18 could be more specific, what is your current
19 enlisted complement level and what are your
20 vacancies?
21 MR. BLOCKER: Yeah, we are -- our
22 current vacancies is about 520, approximately.
23 And, of course, our authorized complement is
24 4,719. So we're -- as I alluded to earlier,
25 there are a number of members of the Department 93
1 that are eligible to retire; but that's such a
2 personal decision. I can speak firsthand about
3 that. I made that very important personal
4 decision back in 2005 for myself. It differs
5 for everyone.
6 In our case, we have to factor in what
7 would be the worst-case scenario in our
8 discussions regarding that. But it's -- this
9 fiscal year, yes, we have 520 vacancies and we
10 were looking at potentially sending through
11 somewhere about 300 troopers through our
12 Academy.
13 REPRESENTATIVE BOBACK: Now, could you
14 accommodate more through the Academy if you had
15 to, or do you just -- is that just a stagnant
16 number, that every year your goal is 300
17 candidates?
18 MR. BLOCKER: Well, it's driven by a
19 number of variables. Right now, we believe
20 three Academy classes, necessary budget is there
21 to facilitate that. However, and we've done
22 this in the past, if there's revenues available,
23 we could look at putting additional classes
24 through the Academy.
25 REPRESENTATIVE BOBACK: All right. 94
1 Because 520 vacancies, I hate to see yourself
2 stretched like that because there are so many
3 demands on you.
4 MR. BLOCKER: Yeah, we're limited at our
5 Academy in terms of the number of individuals
6 that we can accommodate --
7 REPRESENTATIVE BOBACK: You are?
8 MR. BLOCKER: -- there, without
9 extending our Academy outside of our current
10 Academy in Hershey. And we've done that before,
11 but our preference would be to train members of
12 the department at the State Police Academy in
13 Hershey.
14 REPRESENTATIVE BOBACK: Well, then you
15 could also include another class, I'm sure, if
16 you had to; instead of three classes, four
17 classes to take them through the Academy, if
18 need be? Yes? If there was money there and --
19 MR. BLOCKER: Yes.
20 REPRESENTATIVE BOBACK: Okay. Next, can
21 you explain how Trooper placement is set? And
22 that would include staffing levels, resources,
23 priorities; like how and when do you address new
24 enforcement needs? Like, when do you transfer?
25 When do you mobilize? Now, with the drug 95
1 crisis, is that something you look at where
2 there's predominance of crime? How do you do
3 that?
4 MR. BLOCKER: Yeah. We're always
5 looking at our complements. We believe that we
6 have the -- currently, we have the right
7 structure in terms of our geographic locations
8 and those areas of interest.
9 For example, in the area of drug law
10 enforcement, we're always looking at the
11 opportunity to partner with local, county,
12 federal entities. We work closely with the
13 Attorney General's Office, as well.
14 So those strategies, we always look
15 critically at in terms of ensuring that we have
16 our resources properly positioned. As I'm fond
17 of saying, police work is not an exact science.
18 We have to be flexible enough and challenge
19 ourselves to ensure that we are in a position
20 where we can move personnel to those areas that
21 there is a definite need to.
22 REPRESENTATIVE BOBACK: Well, you do a
23 great job. I just wish there were a million
24 more of you, because that's how much we value
25 you. 96
1 Last question with the PIC System: I'm
2 a rural Legislator, and the only complaints I
3 get probably from my gun dealers during gun
4 shows, is that the system is always down. I
5 quote, always. I know it's not always. But
6 what causes that? Is it something that you need
7 to address?
8 MR. BLOCKER: We constantly get
9 inquiries from Legislators regarding our PIC
10 System's down. In 2016, PICS was down about 67
11 hours total, 365 days. There was a partial
12 outage of about 9 hours in 2016.
13 Obviously, when we're talking about
14 technology, there's always challenges around
15 maintenance. I think, by and large, when we
16 look at the outages there, I think we're doing a
17 very good job at that. It's only 1.3 percent of
18 our operating time that the PIC System has been
19 down in 2016.
20 REPRESENTATIVE BOBACK: Thank you for
21 that, and thank you for all you do. Thank you,
22 Mr. Chairman.
23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
24 Representative Kim.
25 REPRESENTATIVE KIM: Good afternoon, 97
1 Colonel. I'm bringing up a very small part of
2 your overall budget, but it has a big impact on
3 a number of my constituents. It's the proposed
4 doubling of fees for criminal background checks
5 or PATCH requests.
6 By one estimate, one-third of the
7 state's working age adults have some type of
8 criminal record. The Limited Access Law was
9 passed and implemented last year. For many,
10 this was a milestone legislation to free people
11 of their old, non-violent convictions that have
12 haunted them for at least a decade, preventing
13 some from employment.
14 Now, the new law doesn't allow employers
15 to see their minor offenses, but law enforcement
16 still can. My office is helping a lot of people
17 expunge their records, but there is another
18 roadblock; it costs too much, and it prevents a
19 lot of them from completing the process.
20 With court filing fees and your costs,
21 that will go from $10 to $20 per background
22 check. The total is $288. Not a lot for some,
23 but a lot for someone who is trying to get a
24 job.
25 This is an unintended consequence that I 98
1 feel I should bring up on behalf of my
2 constituents. It's expensive to get back on
3 your feet. So I see that half of the background
4 checks were of no cost, 500,000 of them. I hope
5 that we can partner somehow to make it more
6 affordable.
7 I know the Governor put this in your
8 budget, so I'm not going to blame you; but we
9 need to do something to prevent those barriers.
10 You have received a lot of requests, and my
11 office is probably partly to blame for some of
12 the backlog because we do have some frequent
13 expungement hearings.
14 How do you ensure the accuracy of these
15 background checks, and what is the transition
16 with the new law of limited access to some of
17 the people's background checks so that employers
18 don't see their minor offenses?
19 MR. BLOCKER: Well, the fees for those
20 background checks, I think they're in the
21 neighborhood of $8 currently for the PATCH
22 checks. I'm not privy to any discussion as to
23 an increase in those costs for those PATCH
24 checks. I think the 500,000 that were of no
25 charge fit in the parameters that the 99
1 Legislature felt that there should not be.
2 It's, you know, child services, those kinds of
3 --
4 REPRESENTATIVE KIM: Oh, right, right
5 right.
6 MR. BLOCKER: -- those kind of
7 occupations, if you will.
8 REPRESENTATIVE KIM: Nonprofits, the
9 churches, and whatnot?
10 MR. BLOCKER: Exactly.
11 REPRESENTATIVE KIM: Okay.
12 MR. BLOCKER: So it's a -- we recognize
13 that there's a cost associated with that, and
14 I'm sure the Legislature will, you know, address
15 that as they see appropriate.
16 REPRESENTATIVE KIM: I know that there
17 are a lot of websites that have false
18 backgrounds, you know, if someone doesn't go
19 through you, which the proposed increase would
20 be $22 per employee. There are a lot of bogus
21 websites that have false background information.
22 Are you guys doing anything to prevent
23 that? Because it really hurts people who are
24 trying to get a job and they have all these
25 types of criminal background -- all these 100
1 records that are not true, are not updated, and
2 it hurts a potential employee.
3 Are you guys doing anything to help
4 prevent those bogus websites?
5 MR. BLOCKER: Representative, I'm
6 unfamiliar with the issue relative to bogus
7 websites for -- that would, you know, substitute
8 for a legitimate PATCH check, but it is
9 something that we can look into to see the
10 extent to which that is an issue.
11 REPRESENTATIVE KIM: Great. Thank you
12 so much, Colonel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
13 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
14 Representative Sonney.
15 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: Thank you, Mr.
16 Chairman. Commissioners, thank you; and thank
17 you for your service. I want to circle back
18 again to the fee and ask for additional
19 information, if I may. And, again, you can
20 provide this, if possible, to the Committee and
21 not have to provide that, you know, right this
22 minute. And, you know, couple more of the
23 things I'd be curious to know about is, like the
24 number of calls that you get to assist municipal
25 police forces and maybe some type of 101
1 approximation of all of the crime lab work that
2 you do. How much of that crime lab work is done
3 for municipal police forces?
4 You know, believe it or not, you know,
5 there's representatives here that live in areas
6 that have municipal police forces and they tell
7 me they receive nothing from the State Police;
8 and that's just not so. You know, I think that,
9 you know, everyone in the Commonwealth is
10 receiving some type of service protection from
11 the State Police. And, obviously, as soon as
12 you leave the area that you live in, if you have
13 municipal police protection and you drive into a
14 rural area, you know, you are under the State
15 Police protection.
16 So, you know, I think just to further
17 the discussion, that we as the Legislature are
18 going to have as we work through funding of the
19 State Police, I think it would be important for
20 us to be able to quantify, you know, how much
21 resources of the State Police are used in
22 assistance of municipal police forces. And so
23 any information that you could provide on those
24 lines would be greatly appreciated.
25 Also, do you have any agreements now 102
1 with municipalities? You know, do you have
2 signed agreements where you charge
3 municipalities to do anything today?
4 MR. BLOCKER: No, we don't. No,
5 Representative, we have no agreements regarding
6 payment for State Police services with any
7 municipalities.
8 I want to just share with you in terms
9 of looking at 2015-2016 figures. For example,
10 the Pennsylvania State Police were requested by
11 local police agencies to conduct 40 homicide
12 investigations in municipalities that have
13 police departments.
14 Now, obviously, we have major case teams
15 in all of our troops. These are highly-trained
16 criminal investigators that have all of the
17 training, discipline, resources to thoroughly
18 investigate major cases.
19 There have been 24 shooting incidents
20 involving municipal law enforcement officers
21 that were engaged in shootings where the State
22 Police investigated those incidents. We work in
23 close tandem with the 67 District Attorneys in
24 the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
25 And the District Attorney is the Chief 103
1 Law Enforcement Officer in that particular
2 county. They know they can reach out to the
3 State Police at any time for any investigative
4 assistance, be it white collar crime, be it
5 violent crime, be it drug-related. And we
6 endeavor in virtually every case to meet their
7 request.
8 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: Well, and again,
9 any way you can quantify that, you know, dollar
10 amount-wise for the Committee, I think would be
11 extremely helpful. You know, as we continue to
12 discuss ways to pay for the State Police, you
13 know, we want to make sure that it's fair and
14 equitable for everyone. And so I just think
15 that's very important information that we could
16 have.
17 I'd like to circle back again just for a
18 minute for the registration stickers. You know,
19 I know that when this was proposed to remove the
20 registration sticker, there were many of us that
21 went up behind the Capitol and were given the
22 demonstration of a police car that had cameras
23 on it that, you know, could pick up that license
24 plate. And I believe if it had five cameras on
25 the car, it would have a 360-degree view. 104
1 You know, have the State Police
2 installed any of those cameras? Do you have
3 intentions of installing those cameras? Do you
4 have a plan to install those cameras?
5 MR. BLOCKER: Well, I think what you're
6 referring to is license plate readers. You
7 know, that's technology that we are well aware
8 of and are looking very seriously at utilizing.
9 Obviously, there's a cost associated with that.
10 But I get back to my original comments
11 in that regard. There's nothing that really
12 substitutes for a trooper out there actively
13 engaged in patrolling our highways and using our
14 radio systems to facilitate verifying vehicle
15 registration.
16 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: So, currently
17 today, you have none of those cameras in use?
18 MR. BLOCKER: No, we have -- to my
19 knowledge, we have no cameras in place to
20 facilitate that.
21 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: Okay. Thank
22 you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
24 Representative Petrarca.
25 REPRESENTATIVE PETRARCA: Thank you, 105
1 Chairman. Thank you, members of the State
2 Police, to be here. Certainly, as my colleagues
3 said, I appreciate what you do and I'm happy to
4 have a very good working relationship with you
5 and the Troopers Association.
6 Obviously, we heard a lot today, a lot
7 of questions and answers, obviously, about your
8 budgets and finances and where we go. But to
9 change gears a little bit, I have a few
10 questions about the so-called cheating scandal
11 that happened with Pennsylvania State Police and
12 the 144th Cadet Class last year.
13 We recently received a report from the
14 Office of Inspector General that I think you
15 asked for them to review what was going on at
16 the Academy. And they issued a report not too
17 long ago where they outlined a lot of practices
18 and procedures that were, I don't know, in my
19 opinion, maybe being done poorly at the Academy,
20 where some of the same tests were given for year
21 after year, as many as ten years, same
22 instructors, study guides were being passed down
23 from class to class, a lot of things that they
24 questioned if were being done properly.
25 And I certainly compliment you. I think 106
1 that you have taken steps and will continue to
2 take steps to make that experience and what
3 happens at the Academy better. And, again, I
4 certainly compliment you for that.
5 I've spoken to a number of cadets from
6 that class. And, again, because I have such a
7 high opinion of the Pennsylvania State Police
8 and what you do, I'm troubled by what -- I guess
9 where we've been and where we've come, you know,
10 after the, you know, so-called cheat sheet was
11 found by State Police personnel, apparently you
12 divided that class into two platoons. And
13 according to some of these cadets -- or the one
14 platoon that was suspected of doing things
15 improperly or cheating, they were treated very
16 badly by State Police staff going forward.
17 A number of these cadets have claimed
18 that State Police personnel have said what was
19 going on is wrong there, that these cadets were
20 being possibly punished; and I guess in the end,
21 many were punished for things they were
22 encouraged to do, quite frankly.
23 I think there were situations where
24 students were, again, encouraged to look at
25 study guides and study guides from other classes 107
1 and they were -- some of them were dismissed;
2 some of them left voluntarily; but even some of
3 the ones that were dismissed, did things, at
4 least in their opinion, no different than others
5 that were allowed to become Pennsylvania State
6 Troopers.
7 And, to me, it seems that the Office of
8 Inspector General, when they looked at this,
9 they were outside eyes and an independent
10 examination of what was going on at the Academy,
11 they looked at what testing procedures were
12 being done by the State Police, I don't think
13 they were looking at it from -- certainly from
14 the standpoint of cadets and if what happened to
15 them was proper under the circumstances.
16 And, in my opinion, I think that we need
17 to take another look at this. I think that the
18 Legislature should look at this. I think we
19 need an independent review of what happened. A
20 lot of these former cadets, you know, as I'm
21 sure with many of you, it was their lifelong
22 dream to become a Pennsylvania State Trooper and
23 that was taken from them and they certainly
24 object to the way that was done.
25 And I think in light -- especially in 108
1 light of the Office of Inspector General's
2 report, that it makes sense that you consider --
3 or reconsider the fate of some of these cadets.
4 And, again, I look -- I would like to
5 talk more with you about this, as we are limited
6 by time here and hopefully work through some
7 kind of solution as we move forward.
8 I don't know if you have any comments on
9 that, but just wanted to share my thoughts.
10 And, again, look forward to working with you in
11 the future.
12 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: With that, we
13 go to Representative Quinn.
14 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: Thank you. Over
15 here, Colonel (indicating). And, team, thanks
16 so much. And I'll reiterate the comments of so
17 many of my colleagues of how important you are
18 to us and to thank you for your service. And
19 thanks also to the families of the troopers.
20 I've got to admit, I'm a tad
21 disappointed. I'm looking around the room and I
22 do not see Homeland Security presence here. Is
23 -- you're hiding back there, or else I was
24 hiding up here. Thanks. I'm glad that you're
25 here today. And if you think it's appropriate 109
1 for you to come in and comment, if the Colonel
2 doesn't have answers to this, I'd appreciate
3 your take in the mike, too.
4 We've heard a lot today about how
5 critically important comprehensive 21st Century
6 radio system is. We've also heard that one of
7 the pillars of -- I'll use the word pride -- you
8 didn't -- of the State Police is that your use
9 of technology, is you're a leader in the
10 adoption -- you know, we're on the cutting edge
11 for technology.
12 So as I look through the technology
13 budget line items, one, it looks like a zero
14 increase for that which incorporates -- or that
15 which funds the following lines: Enterprise
16 network infrastructure support, mobile office
17 and records management supports, management
18 system support, criminal history record system
19 support, Pennsylvania compute services help desk
20 operations, common law enforcement agency; that
21 CLEAN that we've mentioned, uniform crime report
22 internet system, automated criminal
23 investigation intelligence system, Megan's Law,
24 Walsh Act, Pennsylvania Instant Check. And I'm
25 assuming somewhere on here the new prescription 110
1 drug monitoring program is fit in there.
2 So as I'm looking at that and I'm
3 hearing cutting edge and all of that, I'm
4 concerned that I'm not seeing something spelled
5 out for cyber security. It seems to me that all
6 of these line items or lines that I just
7 mentioned in your preparation book, would be --
8 have highly sensitive information in them. And
9 as much as we're out there trying to get bad
10 guys on the streets, there are bad guys and gals
11 who are, you know, working from clouds in
12 bedrooms and all over the world; and I'm not
13 seeing where we're beefing up law enforcement in
14 that direction.
15 Could you please speak to that, to help
16 me --
17 MR. BLOCKER: Sure. I'll share my
18 thoughts, and then maybe Major Evanchick would
19 want to comment, as well. I can assure you,
20 Representative, that from a technology
21 perspective, as it relates to cyber crimes, that
22 we have a state-of-the-art initiative in our
23 Bureau of Investigation that is constantly
24 looking at new and improved investigative
25 techniques to address cyber crime threats in the 111
1 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
2 So it's not something that we're not
3 looking at. When I talk about technology, you
4 know, being a real pillar of 21st Century
5 policing, it is all-encompassing. We have to
6 have our ear very low to the ground on
7 technological changes that are critical for us
8 to maintaining efficient and effective
9 enforcement efforts in the Commonwealth of
10 Pennsylvania, particularly as it relates to
11 partnering with federal, other state, and local
12 law enforcement agencies.
13 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: Colonel, is it
14 appropriate for me now to ask the Director of
15 Homeland Security this? I mean, I want to know
16 where things are interacting, where the rubber's
17 hitting the road for letting our constituents
18 feel safe on things that they don't even know's
19 coming our way.
20 You mentioned that we certainly have an
21 initiative. That word initiative seems to me to
22 be a beginning, and then we're constantly
23 looking at things. So if we're at the beginning
24 and we're fully looking, are we actually
25 implementing security for that which we don't 112
1 even know what's coming?
2 MR. BLOCKER: Well, when I say looking
3 at them, I mean, we're looking very
4 comprehensively. It's not as if we're at the
5 ground level here. We're operating on multiple
6 fronts in terms of enhanced cyber security
7 versus some of those low level areas, as well.
8 We don't look at it through just a
9 single lens. This is a multi-facetted, very
10 integrated kind of initiative when we begin to
11 talk about technology, particularly as it
12 relates to criminal-related matters.
13 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: I see the light.
14 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Uh-huh.
15 MR. BLOCKER: You see the light.
16 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
17 Representative, there's so many things I could
18 say with that.
19 We'll go to Representative Costa.
20 REPRESENTATIVE COSTA: Thank you, Mr.
21 Chairman. And thank you all for being here
22 today. And I would like to echo what most
23 members have said, and I think I can speak on
24 behalf of everyone, that we all appreciate the
25 work that you do and we respect the work that 113
1 you do; so thank you very much.
2 So last week, we had the LCB here; and
3 they said that there was a 1.9-percent increase
4 in the amount of money that you're asking them
5 for for LCE enforcement. Could you go into
6 details, or do you have the details, what that
7 increased amount is going to be used for?
8 MR. BLOCKER: I don't have that right at
9 my fingertips, Representative. We can certainly
10 provide you with that. My sense is, having
11 spoken with individuals from LCE, is that
12 there's a personnel driver there in terms of
13 looking at, you know, our ability to be
14 omnipresent in that whole space associated with
15 Liquor Control Enforcement.
16 It's a -- obviously, we have a great
17 interest in that regard. We're working very
18 diligently at trying to ensure that our
19 complement of Liquor Enforcement Officers are
20 where it should be.
21 We're not at our maximum level as of
22 yet. We're constantly recruiting, bringing
23 classes on, so that we can ensure that we have a
24 full complement to meet those needs.
25 REPRESENTATIVE COSTA: And, obviously, 114
1 you can tell from our Philadelphia members that
2 that is an issue with LCE enforcement in their
3 area. So my staff is going to be reaching out
4 to you very soon. We already reached out to LCB
5 to get some dates where hopefully we can get the
6 LCE and the LCB together and not only educate us
7 but give us an opportunity to ask questions and
8 get some answers on how we can address the
9 Philadelphia issue.
10 Going back to the LCB being charged a
11 1.9-percent addition, they pay a bunch of
12 different agencies for services that are
13 provided. Are any other agencies paying you,
14 besides the Motor License Fund? Are there any
15 other agencies that pay you for services?
16 MR. BLOCKER: I don't think so.
17 Mr. Box, our Fiscal Division Director indicated
18 to me that the Turnpike Commission compensates
19 us, as well.
20 REPRESENTATIVE COSTA: Okay. Well,
21 thank you very much. And, again, thank you all
22 for being here. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
24 Representative Everett.
25 REPRESENTATIVE EVERETT: Thank you, Mr. 115
1 Chairman; and thank you for being here today. I
2 have a question about a federal law that was
3 passed, the NICS Improvement Act. Are you
4 familiar with that at all?
5 I understand -- my understanding of it
6 is, is that if states comply with the
7 requirements within the Act, they have access to
8 some federal dollars and that Pennsylvania is
9 not, at this point, in compliance with that Act
10 and that if we -- there's certain statutory
11 requirements that we would need to meet. And
12 one of those, you know, I believe that in every
13 state and federal, there's, you know -- that
14 there's about getting a gun permit, you can't do
15 so if you've been involuntarily committed to a
16 mental-health facility.
17 One of the things that I understand the
18 NICS Improvement Act would require is a way for
19 someone who has been involuntarily committed --
20 right now there's no way once you have that
21 prohibition, it's my understanding you can't
22 ever own a weapon and there's no mechanism to
23 ever have that erased.
24 So I guess the essence of my question
25 is, would you, the Pennsylvania State Police, 116
1 support the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
2 becoming compliant with the Federal NICS
3 Improvement Act?
4 And if you're not familiar with it right
5 now, I was not until I was brought up to speed
6 on this. It's something you can maybe get back
7 with us on, if that's necessary.
8 MR. BLOCKER: Sure. We'd be more than
9 happy to get back to you on that,
10 Representative. My sense is, is that I believe
11 that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has the
12 most efficient and effective protocols as it
13 results to gun ownership in the country, with
14 our PIC System.
15 I have an awful lot of confidence in
16 that we're able to uphold Second Amendment
17 rights, as well as to ensure that only
18 individuals who purchase guns that are doing it
19 legally.
20 REPRESENTATIVE EVERETT: Thank you. And
21 one of the -- I know you've been asked for a lot
22 of metrics today on the policing of
23 municipalities that don't have their own police
24 force.
25 If while you're gathering all that 117
1 information together for us, if it hasn't been
2 asked, if you could provide us with your
3 estimate of the man hours, trooper hours, that
4 are involved in the policing of municipalities
5 in the Commonwealth that don't have their own
6 police forces.
7 Thank you very much.
8 MR. BLOCKER: Okay.
9 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
10 Representative Ortitay.
11 REPRESENTATIVE ORTITAY: Thank you, Mr.
12 Chairman. And good afternoon, everyone. I'm
13 right up here, up front (indicating). I'm going
14 to talk to the Chairman about getting you guys
15 an extra table for next year, too. You guys
16 look a little crammed together.
17 I have a couple questions about PICS.
18 We were talking about some of the criminal
19 records and the PFAs that are put into that
20 system. Are those sent up to the NIC System at
21 the federal level, as well?
22 MR. BLOCKER: Yes, the --
23 REPRESENTATIVE ORTITAY: Or -- I'm
24 sorry. Go ahead.
25 MR. BLOCKER: There is data that's sent 118
1 from Pennsylvania up to the national system.
2 REPRESENTATIVE ORTITAY: So all the
3 criminal records that we enter into our database
4 end up at the federal level? I mean, I don't
5 know how often it's sent up there; but I just
6 want to make sure that all of that -- just
7 because I know criminals, they aren't -- they
8 don't always stay within state lines and just
9 because it's in PICS doesn't mean they might not
10 go to another state and be accepted there.
11 Would I be accurate in that?
12 MR. BUCAR: Representative, the records
13 that we can share with NICS, we share. There
14 are some records that they won't accept, because
15 we don't have enough identifiers. For instance,
16 if you have a name but no numeral identifiers,
17 the federal system will not accept it.
18 So we have databases that we search
19 using PICS that just hit off of names, because
20 we don't birthdays. Some PFA orders only have a
21 name; they don't have a date of birth. So those
22 can't be -- NICS will not accept them. We
23 search them; but NICS, since they don't accept
24 it because it doesn't have the identifiers, they
25 don't have it available within NICS. 119
1 Does that answer your question?
2 REPRESENTATIVE ORTITAY: Yeah. All I
3 want to do at the end of the day is make sure
4 that what our criminal records are that are
5 going into PICS at the state level are also
6 going into the federal level, as well.
7 Okay. And my next question,
8 Representative Boback kind of touched on this.
9 When the PIC System goes down, I get a text
10 message and an e-mail within like 10 seconds. I
11 have a lot of constituents who like to keep me
12 in the loop on this stuff. And I didn't pay too
13 much attention to it last year. But I will tell
14 you, to date, just to give you an idea here,
15 over the last two weeks, it's been down 7 times,
16 at least. And at least a dozen more times, it's
17 been slow or erratic, like, where they couldn't
18 submit or the system froze.
19 And just to give you a couple more
20 examples on top of that, on February 24th, it
21 was down from 3:00 to 7:00. And then on the
22 next day, the 25th, it was down at noon, back at
23 2:30, and then went offline again randomly the
24 rest of the day. I know it's technology, and I
25 know it can be spotty, but -- 120
1 MR. BLOCKER: Right.
2 REPRESENTATIVE ORTITAY: -- it seems
3 like it's increasing more and more. Is there
4 anything that you guys are noticing within the
5 system, or are you guys planning to do any type
6 of changes or updates to the system to make sure
7 it's more reliable and on-line?
8 MR. BUCAR: Representative, it's
9 frustrating to us. But what is not clear to the
10 Legislature is that PICS -- of all the time that
11 PICS goes down or was down during 2016, only 4
12 and a half hours of that total time was
13 attributed to the PIC System itself.
14 If NICS goes down, PICS is down. If the
15 Criminal History Record Database goes down, PICS
16 is down; because it relies on those databases to
17 do PICS checks. So the majority of those hours,
18 the PIC System is up and running; but because we
19 can't access third-party databases, we're
20 helpless.
21 REPRESENTATIVE ORTITAY: Well, do you
22 guys have any data on how often the NIC System
23 goes down? Because I'd be interested to know,
24 as a comparison, just so we could see where the
25 overlap may be. I know 1.3 percent doesn't 121
1 sound like a bad benchmark; but to the people
2 who own these gun dealerships, they get very
3 upset because they have to turn people away.
4 And more times than not, they don't come back;
5 they lose a sale. And a lot of them are worried
6 that they are going to go out of business,
7 because it seems to be happening more and more
8 frequently.
9 MR. BUCAR: We can provide that to you.
10 REPRESENTATIVE ORTITAY: Okay. Thank
11 you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
12 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR:
13 Representative Pyle.
14 REPRESENTATIVE PYLE: Hi, Colonel. I
15 usually don't have to say I'm over here. I'm
16 the big tall guy. Great to see you again.
17 Chairman, I'd like to report that the Colonel
18 was kind enough to come out and visit the new
19 barracks opening in Kittanning, which is
20 performing optimally. Look forward to kenneying
21 you again.
22 I chaired the Second Amendment Caucus in
23 the Pennsylvania House. There's 88 members, and
24 a lot of the questions that concern our caucus
25 members are being asked, but I have a few for 122
1 you. They deal with the CCW, concealed carry
2 weapons permit, which is obtainable by anybody
3 at the county level.
4 Now, when somebody applies for a CCW,
5 they have to go through background checks. I
6 assume those checks run through PSP; is that
7 correct?
8 MR. BLOCKER: Yes, Representative.
9 REPRESENTATIVE PYLE: So a person who
10 has been issued a concealed carry weapons permit
11 has already been vetted through the State
12 Police, PIC and NIC System before they are
13 allowed and empowered to put a firearm in
14 concealment on them. Am I correct?
15 MR. BUCAR: Yes. That's correct, sir.
16 REPRESENTATIVE PYLE: That's awesome.
17 Because for all these troubles that
18 Representative Ortitay and a number of others
19 have brought up, that's kind of why I'm here.
20 We've got a bill right now that says if you've
21 been properly issued a CCW by your county and
22 you do happen to be in one of those stores when
23 the PIC System goes down, you have already
24 passed muster by virtue of being run through the
25 system to get your CCW. Something to think 123
1 about, you're probably going to see that bill.
2 And I know you're not allowed to make a policy
3 position. That has to come from the Governor.
4 But to make the point, why would
5 somebody have to be vetted twice through the
6 very same system ostensibly for the same result,
7 if they've already passed once? That's my first
8 one. The second one, shifting gears, the $25
9 per head in municipalities without their own
10 municipal police coverage, under Governor
11 Corbett, when the Academy was hurting for money
12 they came to me and asked me to help them with a
13 bill that would say if a municipality ran 32
14 hours, that qualified them as a full-time police
15 force.
16 If they were a full-time police force,
17 any arrests committed or executed within that
18 municipality that resulted in an arrest and a
19 fine, that fine would be split between PSP and
20 that local municipality.
21 I have one municipality that was running
22 30-hour police forces that because it has SR 28
23 running through the middle, which is a big drug
24 highway, north Buffalo Township upped their
25 part-time police from 30 to 36. They now get a 124
1 bite of that pie.
2 Here's my question: If we go to this
3 $25-per capita tax, which is pretty much what it
4 is, will it have an effect on the fine sharing
5 with municipalities that patrol jointly with
6 PSP?
7 MR. BLOCKER: Representative, the issue
8 with respect to fine sharing, we see as a
9 distinct and very separate issue. Normally, you
10 know, we share fines with municipalities and
11 it's usually about a million dollars a year for
12 the most part.
13 But that's probably something that,
14 quite frankly, we haven't really discussed a
15 whole lot. We could get back to you then.
16 REPRESENTATIVE PYLE: In fairness, it
17 doesn't apply a great deal back home; but there
18 are two or three townships that collect
19 significant revenue from drug busts out on 28,
20 which is normally a collaborative with PSP --
21 MR. BLOCKER: Right.
22 REPRESENTATIVE PYLE: -- and north
23 Buffalo, south Buffalo, east Franklin, all the
24 other municipalities that patrol.
25 That's pretty much my question. Just to 125
1 let you know, we're going to try to move a bill
2 that says if you've been issued a CCW and PICS
3 is down, you should still be issued that
4 firearm.
5 Thank you, Chairman.
6 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: Last
7 questioner today, Commissioner. Representative
8 Milne.
9 REPRESENTATIVE MILNE: And the last
10 shall be first. But actually I think it's
11 symbolically and substantively reflective of my
12 question that I am the final questioner.
13 I actually want to turn a little bit
14 more attention to Homeland Security issues, and
15 I think that's important to maybe bring that all
16 together as we finish up this particular
17 segment. Because, after all, the first and most
18 fundamental order of government is to ensure
19 there are territorial protections of the
20 society. Certainly the umbrella of Homeland
21 Security is an integral part of this. So the
22 context of my question is, that as a military
23 reservist, my unit has done DSCA missions,
24 ironically, in other states but never here in
25 Pennsylvania. 126
1 So I'm wondering what our interaction is
2 with DSCA missions, whether we've thought about
3 pulling done some training dollars to support
4 our efforts here in the Commonwealth? And maybe
5 any context you'd like to offer about our
6 relationship over in the DSCA/Cheney command.
7 MR. BLOCKER: Let me make sure I
8 understand your question. In terms of PSP
9 dealing with or interacting with what entity?
10 REPRESENTATIVE MILNE: Defense Support
11 of Civil Authorities, the DSCA missions.
12 MR. BLOCKER: All right. I am
13 unfamiliar with that particular area. We can
14 certainly research it and get back to you.
15 REPRESENTATIVE MILNE: Okay. I
16 appreciate that. I believe the Director of
17 Homeland Security indicated he also, I guess,
18 could contact me and we'll go from there. I
19 guess, then bringing it then to state, local
20 horizontally, could you comment on the
21 relationship then with PSP and PEMA and where
22 you kind of see the strengths and opportunities
23 there? Again, sort of the umbrella of Homeland
24 Security in the emergency responses context.
25 MR. BLOCKER: I would be pleased to talk 127
1 about the PSP relationship with the Pennsylvania
2 Emergency Management Agency. We have an
3 exceptional relationship with PEMA. Director
4 Flinn and I speak regularly about substantive
5 issues that potentially affect the Commonwealth
6 of Pennsylvania.
7 As you know, PEMA's just moved into a
8 new facility just adjacent to the State Police
9 headquarters on Elmerton Avenue. So there's a
10 lot of interaction through conference calls.
11 Our staff exchange information on a regular
12 basis. If there's something going on in a
13 particular part of the state that State Police
14 are responsible for, we routinely reach out to
15 PEMA and vice-versa.
16 We see a real partner with PEMA in
17 furtherance of providing public safety and
18 security to Pennsylvanians.
19 REPRESENTATIVE MILNE: I appreciate
20 hearing that. And maybe then as sort of a
21 general characterization, where do you see some
22 of the opportunities we can continue and enhance
23 our efforts at the state level in terms of where
24 the Legislature can be useful in terms of our
25 priority of efforts to support your good work? 128
1 MR. BLOCKER: Well, I think it's -- you
2 know, it's a matter of the Legislature, you
3 know, being available to discuss relevant
4 issues. I think it's always important to meet
5 with the various committees so that we can keep
6 you abreast of some of the challenges that
7 various public safety agencies address.
8 And what I'm referring to is, you know,
9 you look at the State Police, you look at PEMA,
10 you look at Homeland Security, you look at the
11 Department of Military and Veteran Affairs,
12 that's what we refer to as -- and Corrections --
13 as the public safety hub.
14 We're constantly -- the various
15 directors of those agencies, we're constantly
16 meeting, strategizing about different areas of
17 mutual concern where we can partner with.
18 So that's really happening within this
19 Administration. However, you know, if there is
20 a group of Legislators that would like to be,
21 you know, briefed periodically regarding public
22 safety issues, I won't speak for Director Flinn
23 or Director Brown, but my sense is that we could
24 facilitate that.
25 REPRESENTATIVE MILNE: Certainly. And 129
1 I'm sure many of us would take you up on that
2 opportunity. With that, I thank you and all
3 assembled on your ranks, for your great service
4 to the Commonwealth and the nation as a whole.
5 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
6 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: You're
7 welcome. Commissioner, I want to thank all of
8 you for coming today and giving us your time to
9 talk about your budget and priorities and kind
10 of filling us in.
11 And, Commissioner, I appreciated your
12 opening remarks. I think it was very
13 educational to those who are not familiar,
14 particularly the TV audience. I think a lot of
15 times a lot of people don't really know a whole
16 lot. They see the troopers out there in their
17 cars or any number of places, but they don't
18 really realize the job that you guys do and the
19 amount of jobs you do with the force that you
20 have.
21 So as somebody who has for a long time
22 believed that we actually need more troopers
23 than we actually have, just because of 911 and
24 everything else.
25 MR. BLOCKER: Right. 130
1 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: I wish you
2 well in the coming year, and all your troopers
3 be safe. And I'll ask Representative Markosek
4 for any closing comments.
5 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: Thank you,
6 Chairman. And when we started, I directed my
7 comments to my own colleagues. And I'd like to
8 continue on that vein and just say to my
9 colleagues, the questions that were asked today,
10 I thought, were very enlightening, a lot of
11 stuff I hadn't thought of.
12 And you did an excellent job of
13 answering them; and I think we learned a lot
14 today, which is the whole purpose of this. So
15 as we move forward through the budget, we look
16 forward to working with all of you. And, you
17 know, please let us know if we can help you with
18 anything.
19 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SAYLOR: And with
20 that, the Committee is recessed until tomorrow
21 morning at 10 a.m., when we will hear from the
22 Budget Secretary.
23 MR. BLOCKER: Thank you.
24 (Whereupon, the hearing concluded.)
25 131
1 CERTIFICATE
2
3 I hereby certify that the proceedings and
4 evidence are contained fully and accurately in the notes
5 taken by me on the within proceedings and that this is a
6 correct transcript of the same.
7
8 ______
9 Tracy L. Markle, Court Reporter/Notary 10
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