COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE THE MAIN CAPITOL ROOM 14 0 HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA TUESDAY, MARCH 22, 2011 11:00 A.M. PUBLIC HEARING PENNSYLVANIA STATE POLICE BEFORE: HONORABLE WILLIAM F. ADOLPH, JR., CHAI^IAN HONORABLE JOSEPH F. MARKOSEK HONORABLE JOHN C. BEAR HONORABLE MARTIN T. CAUSER HONORABLE GORDON DENLINGER HONORABLE BRIAN L. ELLIS HONORABLE MAUREE GINGRICH HONORABLE GLEN R. GRELL HONORABLE TOM KILLION HONORABLE DAVID R. MILLARD HONORABLE T. MARK MUSTIO HONORABLE BERNIE O'NEILL HONORABLE MICHAEL PEIFER HONORABLE SCOTT A. PETRI HONORABLE SCOTT PERRY HONORABLE TINA PICKETT CONTINUED: HONORABLE JEFFREY P. PYLE HONORABLE THOMAS J. QUIGLEY HONORABLE DOUGLAS REICHLEY HONORABLE MARIO M. SCAVELLO HONORABLE CURTIS G. SONNEY HONORABLE MATTHEW D. BRADFORD HONORABLE H. SCOTT CONKLIN HONORABLE PAUL COSTA HONORABLE DEBERAH KULA HONORABLE TIM MAHONEY HONORABLE MICHAEL H. O'BRIEN HONORABLE CHERELLE L. PARKER HONORABLE JOHN P. SABATINA, JR. HONORABLE STEVE SAMUELSON HONORABLE MATTHEW SMITH HONORABLE RONALD G. WATERS ALSO PRESENT: HONORABLE STEPHEN BARRAR HONORABLE KERRY A. BENNINGHOFF HONORABLE VANESSA LOWERY BROWN HONORABLE MICHELLE F. BROWNLEE HONORABLE DOM COSTA HONORABLE PAUL I. CLYMER HONORABLE MARK B. COHEN HONORABLE TOM C. CREIGHTON HONORABLE MARGO L. DAVIDSON HONORABLE MARIA DONATUCCI HONORABLE JOHN R. EVANS HONORABLE DAN FRANKEL HONORABLE RICHARD A. GEIST HONORABLE JOSEPH T. HACKETT HONORABLE C. ADAM HARRIS HONORABLE MARCY TOEPEL HONORABLE MIKE VEREB EDWARD NOLAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR (R) MIRIAM FOX, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR (D) BRENDA S. HAMILTON, RPR REPORTER - NOTARY PUBLIC INDEX NAME PAGE OPENING REMARKS BY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH 4 OPENING REMARKS BY REP. MARKOSEK 5 COLONEL FRANK NOONAN 6 COMMISSIONER MR. SCOTT FREDERICK, DIRECTOR OF 8 FISCAL DIVISION MAJOR KENNETH HILL, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER 25 OF ADMINISTRATION AND PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY MAJOR GEORGE BIVENS, DEPUTY SECRETARY OF 4 9 OPERATIONS MAJOR SCOTT SNYDER, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER -¬ OF STAFF P R O C E E D I N G S COMMISSIONER NOONAN: Good morning, Chairman Adolph, and members of the House Appropriations Committee. No? I'm sorry. CHAI^IAN ADOLPH: Good morning. COMMISSIONER NOONAN: Good morning. CHAI^IAN ADOLPH: The hour of eleven o'clock having arrived, I'd like to call to order the House Appropriations' budget hearing for the Pennsylvania State Police. Testifying today is the new State Police Commissioner, Frank Noonan. Commissioner Noonan was nominated by Governor Corbett on January 18th to be the new commissioner for the Pennsylvania State Police. Mr. Noonan is a career investigator with more than 30 years. He began his career in 1971 as an FBI agent investigating public corruption, drugs, bank robberies and kidnapping. Following his retirement from the FBI in 1998, Commissioner Noonan was appointed as the northeast regional director for the Attorney General's Bureau of Narcotics Investigations. After 11 years as regional director, Commissioner Noonan was promoted to the Chief of Criminal Investigations for the Office of Attorney General in July of 2009. Commissioner Noonan, congratulations -¬ COMMISSIONER NOONAN: Thank you. CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: -- on your new appointment. Wish you well. And without further ado, Chairman Markosek for opening comments. REP. MARKOSEK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You have to wait awhile here, you know, while we go through all the — the housekeeping. But welcome and congratulations, Colonel Noonan. Representative Matt Smith from Allegheny County, a member of the Committee, has arrived, and the minority chair, Democratic chair of the Judiciary Committee, Representative Tom Caltagirone, is present with us today as well, and I wanted to make sure that they were recognized here. So welcome. And I'll turn it back to the -- to the Chair. CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Commissioner Noonan, we received your written testimony and the time is yours. You can introduce your colleagues at the table and after you're done with your brief introduction and synopsis of your testimony, we'll open the floor for questions. COMMISSIONER NOONAN: Thank you. I am Colonel Frank Noonan, Acting Commissioner of the State Police. With me today are Acting Deputy Commissioner of Staff, Scott Snyder; Acting Deputy Commissioner of Operations, George Bivens; Acting Deputy Commissioner of Administration and Professional Responsibility, Kenneth Hill; and the Director of our Fiscal Division, Scott Frederick. All right. Do you wish me to go through my notes or just to make a brief opening statement? CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Whatever you're more comfortable with. We always want to make sure that you feel comfortable with us, because we want to feel comfortable with you. COMMISSIONER NOONAN: Well, thank you. I'll just -- I'll just say it's a pleasure to be here today to talk to you all. It's a great honor. The State Police is facing many challenges. The number one challenge we're facing to date is that we're down almost 400 troopers. We expect in the near future -- we have a contract coming up in a year and a half. Our normal attrition rate is about 150 troopers a year. In the -- in contract years, though, especially if the contract has a negative effect, we're going to -- we -- we anticipate that it could be quite a bit more. The -- the -- adding troopers and getting our complement back up is something that has been recognized by Governor Corbett, and in his budget proposal he's trying to get our numbers up to -- about 230 troopers will be added, and that is my basic concern. It -- if there's any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. CHAI^IAN ADOLPH: Thank you. The first question is by State Representative Bernie O'Neill. REP. O'NEILL: Good morning, and congratulations on your new appointment. I wanted to talk about the cadets in the cadet class. COMMISSIONER NOONAN: Yes. REP. O'NEILL: Something that I've been involved in on the Judiciary Committee for many years so -- and your -- your complement. Right now what is -- what is the complement that you have right now, as we speak, of troopers? COMMISSIONER NOONAN: 4,677. REP. O'NEILL: And what would be the full complement, if you were up to the full complement that you'd normally -¬ DEP. COMM. FREDERICK: That -- I'm sorry. That is the full complement. Full complement is 4,677. That's our authorized complement. REP. O'NEILL: Okay. So what -- what -¬ what do you have now? You're down 400 and some? Is that DEP. COMM. FREDERICK: We're down just 4 00. So you're looking at -¬ REP. O'NEILL: Okay. Great. And then in the budget proposal you've asked for about 13.4 million in appropriations for -- is it two classes? COMMISSIONER NOONAN: It's -- it's 230 cadets. We may break that up because -- because of some logistical matters into three classes. But that's the number of people we're asking for. REP. O'NEILL: Okay. COMMISSIONER NOONAN: The number of cadets. REP. O'NEILL: Okay. And — and what is approximately the cost per cadet when they go through the -- I get -- someone told me it was around a hundred thousand maybe. DEP. COMM. FREDERICK: Yes. It's close to that. If you look at it starting from July 1st, the cost of a cadet is roughly around 40,000 and the cost of a trooper, once he becomes a trooper for the remaining portion of the year, it equates to roughly about a hundred thousand dollars. Again if you started July 1st. If you start pushing cadet classes back further in the fiscal year, it gets less and less because of the fiscal year ends -¬ REP. O'NEILL: Yeah. DEP. COMM. FREDERICK: -- the fiscal year balance. REP. O'NEILL: Got you. And then actually after they get out of school, out of the class, they're really not up to full complement, what, for six months or so because they're still not -¬ COMMISSIONER NOONAN: That's correct. REP. O'NEILL: — on street training. COMMISSIONER NOONAN: They're in training for six months to a year depending on how -¬ REP. O'NEILL: Before they -¬ COMMISSIONER NOONAN: Before they're considered fully -¬ REP. O'NEILL: And they're actually -- so you're talking almost a year or more sometimes for some of those guys? COMMISSIONER NOONAN: That's correct. And that's why I'm concerned about the potential for a number of retirements in the upcoming year, that we would maybe face a crisis situation if we drop down to where we're 600 troopers down. It would be -- it would be very difficult for us. REP. O'NEILL: Right. Yeah. And there's a lot of people here in the legislature that have been very supportive of what -¬ COMMISSIONER NOONAN: Yes. REP. O'NEILL: — you're trying to do and haven't agreed with the past administration and -- and the cadet classes. The bottom dollar is -- is always, you know, the budget and where the money is coming from. In the House there have been several bills over the years concerning how the troopers, when they're out in areas that are not patrolled by any type of municipality or borough police and they give out a ticket, how a portion of that or 50 percent of it is going to the local community even though they're not supporting a local police department. And we've had several bills that concern that in the House, and it's kind of always been a sticking point because there was always a fight over how that money should be spent that was coming back to the state. But I believe it's Senate Bill 237 is out there. That -- that bill itself does that and -- and takes that money away from the municipalities and locals. In that bill, I just want to make sure, is that dedicated to go back to the State Police and dedicated to your cadet classes? COMMISSIONER NOONAN: I believe that's correct.