Transfers might trump lawmakers' move to save THP unit

WSMV.com
April 26, 2006

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The House voted Wednesday to ensure the Department of Safety keeps the Criminal Investigation Division that the governor has tried to transfer to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

But that vote may be largely symbolic since the Safety Department has begun to cut the unit's staffing almost in half.

Safety Commissioner Jerry Nicely said 13 agents have agreed to move to the TBI and 10 more will be transferred to the Department of Revenue. That will leave 23 agents at the whittled-down CID.

The bill sponsored by House Transportation Chairman Phillip Pinion originally would have established a minimum number of CID agents, but an amendment to the bill puts the personnel decisions at the discretion of the commissioner.

Pinion, a Union City Democrat, last year halted Gov. Phil Bredesen's attempt to completely transfer the CID out of the Safety Department. Pinion said he changed his legislation at the request of the governor's office.

The House bill passed 96-0, with one abstention.

The top three officials at the Safety Department departed last year in the wake of a series of scandals, including reports of political favoritism, ticket-fixing, troopers with criminal backgrounds and others selling merchandise to the state in violation of purchasing laws.

Bredesen put Nicely, the state's transportation commissioner, in charge of the department temporarily and hired outside consultant Kroll Inc. to recommend changes to deal with the problems.

Senate Transportation Chairman Mark Norris, a Collierville Republican, was among the lawmakers who resisted the move of CID agents to the TBI, not least because TBI records are not subject state open-records rules.

"We thought that the governor's intention was to move them all to the TBI, because what goes to the TBI, stays with the TBI," said Norris. "That's why I made the comment that the governor wants a secret police."

The CID works as an independent law enforcement agency, getting much of its direction directly from the safety commissioner. Its main responsibility is investigating car thefts, including undercover investigations of thefts, odometer fraud, driver's license fraud and insurance fraud.

The unit is also responsible for background checks on trooper applications, but the Kroll report cited "serious flaws" in that process, such as investigators apparently disregarding conflicting reports on applicants' places of residence and hiring authorities disregarding no-hire recommendations from investigators.

As part of Kroll's recommendations, Bredesen last week signed executive orders to reorganize the Department of Safety by placing the Tennessee Law Enforcement Academy under the Department of Commerce and the Division of Title and Registration under the Department of Revenue.

The Kroll report found that communications among the state's various law enforcement agencies are weak.

"There is duplication in services," the report found. "Getting one agency to support the needs of another is a bureaucratic process ... There is no 'all for one, one for all' environment in state law enforcement."

TBI Director Mark Gwyn told the Senate Transportation Committee that the former CID agents would be educated to bring them up to his agency's standards.

Norris questioned Nicely about why he had requested a budget that included funding for the units transferred out of Safety and for the full cohort of CID agents.

Nicely responded that the department's budget was drafted before the shake-up at Safety.

Democrats on the committee urged Norris to stop questioning Nicely and the department and to advance the budget request.

"I see what we're doing here today as a waste of our energy, trying to shine a microscope on something that is in process that is working to be fixed ... ," said Sen. Rosalind Kurita, D-Clarksville. "I'm tired of the investigative attitude."