Merge ahead?

CEDAR RAPIDS - When officer Loren Waterman activated the lights on his Iowa Department of Transportation enforcement vehicle Tuesday, he immediately noticed a problem with the dump truck he was pulling over.

“He has a brake light out,” said Waterman, a DOT enforcement officer of 16 years. “We already have a violation.”

The driver was carrying a large load of concrete from Marion to Williamsburg.

“Run your wipers for me,” Waterman said. “How about your seat belt? Do you wear that thing occasionally?”

Iowa's DOT enforcement officers inspect commercial vehicles for compliance with weight, size, license and safety requirements. Officers have conducted fewer inspections in recent years, though, and subsequently issued fewer citations.

To maximize resources and productivity, the Iowa Department of Transportation is considering merging its enforcement arm with the Iowa State Patrol.

The change would move DOT enforcement officers under the purview of the Iowa Department of Public Safety. Officials believe it will benefit both organizations by consolidating time, money, equipment and facilities.

A group of representatives from each agency has been meeting twice a week for months to debate the pros and cons and to iron out details. Fusing the groups would require a change to the Iowa Code, meaning the merger isn't imminent.

On Tuesday's inspection stop, after weighing and measuring the truck and checking the driver's required paperwork, Waterman tallied seven violations. The brake light was serious enough to put the vehicle out of service immediately.

“Our department's core focus is one of the biggest investments the state has - and that's the roads,” Waterman said. “We are out here to protect the roads and the laws that regulate them.”

The inspections officers who used to accomplish that mission have declined, though. DOT enforcement officers inspected 42,601 commercial vehicles in fiscal 2010, down from the 59,514 inspections in fiscal 2007. They doled out 25,908 tickets for violating safety regulations in 2010, down from 37,893 in 2007. Last year, they issued 648 tickets to drivers with oversize vehicles, a 54 percent drop from the 1,410 citations issued in 2007.

Mark Lowe, director of the DOT's motor vehicle division, said a combination of factors have caused the drop in inspections - including a surge in officer retirements, floods monopolizing officer time, rough winters restricting travel and enforcement capabilities, and mandatory training for new hires.

“Once we hire someone, they have to go through extensive training and testing,” Lowe said, “and there is a good period of getting their feet under them in actual road situations once we get passed all that.”

Lowe said the number of inspections should start to pick up once new hires get in the field.

A state program offering retirement incentives prompted seasoned enforcement officers to quit early last year and left the department in a bit of a lurch. The DOT in 2010 had 16 enforcement officer positions to fill. That's 15 percent of its workforce, Lowe said.

The number of open positions has dropped to 10, Lowe said, but the department won't be able to fill them and have the officers fully trained until June.

“That has an impact on the number of inspections we can do,” he said.

The DOT's goal is to have 91 officers, sergeants and investigators dedicated to road enforcement, Lowe said. Merging with the State Patrol could help the department reach and maintain that number by streamlining the training process and attracting more candidates to a diverse career with either agency, Lowe said.

“There is no point in doing all the testing separately,” he said. “We will be using the same processes with the same folks, and we will not be needing to use so many resources.”

Even with a full workforce, major disasters - like flooding - can pull resources away from commercial vehicle enforcement. Iowa DOT director Paul Trombino said merging the two agencies could mean a more coordinated response in emergencies.

“We have a joint role for emergency operations and evacuation planning,” Trombino said. “I think we can be better long-term by doing that together.”

Trombino said a merger probably won't mean much for the day-to-day duties of enforcement officers and troopers, but it could mean combining equipment, training, facilities, communication equipment and resources, said Col. Patrick Hoye with the Iowa State Patrol.

“We want to capitalize on the expertise at each agency and focus integration at all levels,” Hoye said. “We want to enhance responsiveness, services and safety.”