Budget Cuts could affect road safety

State budget cuts that have already occurred and future cuts next year could start affecting your safety on South Carolina’s roads and highways. The Highway Patrol graduated 36 new state troopers Friday, but a smaller class that was supposed to start training in January has been canceled and Public Safety director Mark Keel says he does not expect there to be any new troopers hired next year because of the budget cuts.

Keel says the Patrol now has 978 troopers, including the new graduates. But based on the state’s population, miles of roadway and amount of vehicle traffic, the Patrol should have about 1,100 troopers. The Patrol loses an average of 57 troopers a year to retirement and other jobs, so this new graduating class won’t even keep the agency even.

Keel says new budget cuts expected next year, combined with the millions already cut from the Patrol, could start affecting your safety. “Fatalities are down 167 as of this morning,” he says. “So 167 less people have lost their lives on South Carolina highways. And we really believe it’s due, in fact, to the numbers of troopers that we have on the road.”

He won’t speculate on how much the agency will actually lose, since the budget hasn’t been written yet, but the House Ways and Means committee sent the Department of Public Safety a letter on Monday asking it how it would cut 15 percent from the agency’s budget. The department’s budget was cut by $11 million this year. “Needless to say, these cuts are going to impact us, severely,“ Keel says.