DHSMV to Retrain Supervisors on Quota Laws
August 16th, 2017 by Jake Stofan
A North Florida highway patrol supervisor told troopers last week to step up their ticket writing from 1.3 tickets an hour to 2 tickets an hour.
Citation quotas are illegal in Florida.
“We will immediately designate that quotas are prohibited by Florida law in our FHP policy,” said Executive Director of the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.
Rhodes appeared before her bosses, the Governor and Cabinet to explain how the department is responding to the controversial memo sent by Major Mark Welch.
“Stupid statement. That’s the only way to describe what that person said,” said Attorney General Pam Bondi.
To prevent future mishaps the Florida Highway Patrol will be putting their supervisors through online training courses.
“To ensure that they know what the Florida law is and what the quotas means by statute,” said Rhodes.
Florida Highway Patrol Director Gene Spaulding says despite Major Welches memo, FHP troopers never felt they were expected to meet quotas.
“They have never been disciplined they have never been evaluated. There’s been no punitive damages. They’ve never been rewarded strictly for writing citations,” said FHP Director, Colonel Gene Spaulding.
The Florida Highway Patrol is currently reviewing its options for disciplinary action against Major Welch.
For now, Rhodes believes the department has done enough.
“We feel like there’s going to be no other type of mistake that was made like that and that there are no quotas within the highway patrol,” said Rhodes.
Department officials say although quotas are not enforced at FHP they still expect their troops to be productive and actively issue tickets when appropriate.
In addition to the online training course FHP supervisory positions will now include language specifying quotas are not permitted in their job descriptions.
Posted in State News | 
No Comments »