State senators debate plan for more state patrol members

LINCOLN –  The Nebraska State Patrol is at its lowest number since 1996, but the patrol is budgeting to fix radios and vehicles, not hire more troopers, said Sen. Colby Coash of Lincoln during debate on Legislative Bill 579, Thursday, April. 11.

The bill would increase from nine to 15 the number of state patrol members who focus on enforcing the Nebraska Liquor Control Act.  Nebraska has about 425 state patrol members, said Sen. Bob Krist of Omaha.

Coash voted against advancing the bill from the General Affairs Committee because he said enforcing liquor laws isn’t the only thing the patrols need to do.

“We do have needs in law enforcement,” he said. “We have needs for more troopers. Whether they go to liquor enforcement, child sex crime investigation, we need all of that.”

Sen. Dave Bloomfield of Hoskins said assigning new officers to liquor control frees up others. Earlier in the debate, he said having more patrol in rural areas gives people a sense of security.

Karpisek sponsored the bill and said there used to be 12 officers focused on enforcing liquor laws and dealing with license holders in 1987, but that was ratcheted down to nine, which is why the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission brought the issue to Karpisek.

“We’re trying to stop the slide any lower than 10,” he said.

There is about one officer focused on liquor law enforcement for every 600 active liquor license holders, with 5,583 licensees listed on the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission website.

As debate stretched on for LB579, an amendment by the General Affairs Committee to decrease liquor law patrol officers from 15 to 10 passed on a vote of 26 to one, with Sen. Steve Lathrop of Omaha opposed.

Several senators said it’s a tough decision because of the budget and would take away from other priority bills. Karpisek agreed it would affect the budget. It would cost about $100,000 per additional patrol member in 2013 to 2014 and about $90,000 in 2014 to 2015, according to the fiscal note attached to the bill.

Sen. Tyson Larson of O’Neill said that’s too much. Larson said to look at other 2013 priority bills and weed out some of them.  He said that setting a number in statute reduces flexibility for the Appropriations Committee to work on the budget.

The senators ran out of time to vote on an amendment by Karpisek.  He said it would clarify that the bill gave the state patrol power to decide if it should increase up to 15 people the number dedicated to liquor enforcement.

“I think this is the piece that takes away any micromanaging that we may be concerned about because it assigns 10 members and there are currently roughly nine,” he said.