Get into an accident on Jacksonville's state roads these days and you will have to wait a lot longer for a trooper.
In the three months since budget cuts forced the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office to ask the Florida Highway Patrol to handle accidents it used to cover, trooper workloads have skyrocketed above a regional trend.
Troop G (Baker, Bradford, Clay, Duval, Flagler, Putnam, Nassau, St. Johns and Union counties) saw crash calls rise 88 percent in October compared with the same month in 2011, said Capt. Keith Gaston, the Highway Patrol's district commander. Duval County numbers are even higher, he said, as they hear from "irate customers" standing next to their wrecks.
"Most are calling one of the communication centers, whether it is us or the Sheriff's Office, asking what the status is," Gaston said.
"We ... [supervisors] have had to take more calls," he said. "The best I can do is explain what the circumstances are."
Jacksonville Sheriff John Rutherford cut police and community service officers who used to handle minor accidents as part of citywide budget mandates. He asked for the Highway Patrol to take on some of the traffic load so officers don't have to cut back on crime work. But city police are still handling about 75 percent of incidents on those state roads, he said.
"They need to bring much more to Duval County in the way of resources and they are working on that," Rutherford said. "We are doing more than I intended to do, but we are here to serve the community as well. It is also putting the onus on FHP to handle as many as they can, but they are falling woefully short because they don't have the staff."
Budget cuts in August saw the Sheriff's Office cut 74 police positions and 63 community officers. To make up, Jacksonville officers stopped investigating accidents on Interstates 95, 10 and 295 and every major state road in Southwest Jacksonville and from San Marco to Mandarin.
All 911 calls for accidents in those areas are assigned to the 25 state troopers who cover Duval and Clay counties. Jacksonville's officers still respond to accidents on non-state roads and will help anywhere until troopers arrive. But due to the shift to troopers, Gaston said they handled 1,013 crashes in Duval, Clay and Nassau counties in September vs. 430 in the same area last September. Some days are worse, like a recent rainy Friday.
"There were 14 calls holding that had been holding over an hour and it was shift change, and we had to keep them on overtime," Gaston said. "That means they have to offset their time someplace else during the week."
Gaston said troopers have sped up the report writing, grabbing basic information so they can get the crash victim on their way.
Rutherford said his officers still work state road accidents to help. But if it's a busy night, "I don't want them to work."
Gaston said more troopers will hit the streets soon as two academies graduate more replacements. But it will take 12 to 18 months until they get more personnel to handle more of the Sheriff's Office's load.
"They have been good at handling some of those that have been waiting long, or getting the next few," Gaston said. "We have been trying to do the best with the resources we have between the two agencies."
Copyright 2012 - The Florida Times-Union, Jacksonville
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
