A dozen Florida Highway Patrol troopers from Tallahassee to Miami were fired, forced to retire or otherwise disciplined after an in-house investigation into whether they were billing the agency for hours they spent working from home, eating at restaurants and visiting girlfriends and relatives.
The disciplinary action came as part of a probe into the agency’s Statewide Overtime Action Response program, which is designed to beef up traffic enforcement in high-priority areas, including Interstate 10 in Leon County. Troopers, who are paid time and a half to patrol the areas, are expected to aggressively enforce traffic laws when working SOAR. Last fall, Terry Rhodes, executive director of the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, asked the agency’s Office of Inspector General to review the SOAR program to identify potential waste, fraud and abuse. In June, lawmakers included $5.1 million in the state budget for SOAR overtime. Over the past five fiscal years, they gave more than $25 million for SOAR OT.
The OIG reviewed the activity of 36 troopers and officers who turned in the most SOAR hours among the FHP’s 12 troops across the state. Some 13 were alleged to have violated policies, though one of them, a sergeant, retired before the investigation began.
