Iowa State Patrol takes on commercial vehicle enforcement

The Iowa State Patrol has swelled by about 100 officers — not by adding that many troopers, but by a state reorganization that moves commercial vehicle enforcement out of the Iowa Department of Transportation and into the State Patrol.

A government reorganization bill passed during this year’s legislative session went into effect Saturday with the beginning of the state’s fiscal year. The goal of combining the two agencies — just one aspect of the state reorganization that reduces the number of cabinet-level state agencies from 37 to 16 and eliminates scores of vacant state government jobs — is to increase efficiency and consistency with state law enforcement, said Col. Nathan Fulk, the chief of the patrol.

  Buy Photo

“We’ve been planning and coordinating for quite some time and the goal is to align all traffic enforcement state police officers together. The Commercial Motor Vehicle Unit, they do commercial motor vehicle work. State troopers do mainly traffic enforcement. So we truly feel we can better serve Iowa with traffic safety by combining those resources. There will be a significant benefit to have that collaboration,” Fulk said. “We're going to be better aligned to provide traffic safety efforts across the state of Iowa.”

The day-to-day work for individual officers won’t look too different, according to Fulk. The State Patrol will have a Commercial Motor Vehicle Specialty Unit filled by all the officers coming in under the reorganization. Tom Bruun, the previous chief of the Iowa DOT’s Motor Vehicle Enforcement Unit, will be a major in the State Patrol.

The Motor Vehicle Enforcement officers already have the same arrest and citation powers as State Patrol officers. The state had lost a lawsuit brought by drivers in 2018 challenging the Iowa DOT officers’ authority to issue speeding tickets just like troopers. The Iowa Supreme Court ruled unanimously that they didn’t — that state law gave motor vehicle enforcement officers the ability to write citations for registration, size, weight and operating authority violations only. But as the lawsuit progressed to the justices, state lawmakers adjusted the law and gave motor vehicle enforcement officers the authority to also issue traffic citations.

“The benefit is we’ll provide career opportunities for those that want to transition to other roles. So, those that work for Motor Vehicle Enforcement can apply to come over to a State Patrol road position, and State Patrol road troopers an apply to be in the commercial motor vehicle unit. So this will provide career opportunities for everyone to seek the employment and the work that they wish to do,” Fulk said.

The Motor Vehicle Enforcement officers also will have the opportunity to join the State Police Officers Council — the Iowa State Patrol officers’ union — as part of the merger. The State Police Officers Council is one of the few public employee unions in Iowa that can negotiate for benefits including health insurance, paid time off and overtime, rather than negotiating salaries only. A law passed in 2017 and upheld by the Iowa Supreme Court in 2019 prohibits public employee unions from bargaining for these benefits unless at least 30 percent of the members of the union work in public safety.

While planning for the merger, Fulk said he reached out to other states that have recently combined their motor vehicle enforcement with their state patrol, including Colorado, Nebraska and Missouri, to get an idea of how they made the transition and what lessons they learned.

“We’ve done a lot of planning and preparation for this. (The officers) know the table of organization, who they report to, what the mission is. Day in and day out, their work is going to relatively remain the same. We’re just going to be closer aligned to collectively support traffic safety,” Fulk said.

Comments: (319) 398-8328; emily.andersen@thegazette.com