Commander suspended in FHP’s ticket-quota review

TALLAHASSEE — A Florida Highway Patrol regional commander received a three-day suspension as the agency completed an internal review about whether troopers got quotas for writing traffic tickets. The agency maintains there are no quotas, but the controversy resulted in the exit of two other high-ranking agency officials.

The three-day suspension without pay of Chief Mark Brown from his $118,000-ayear position as the North Florida operations regional commander was announced as the state agency said it has completed its review and is enacting new guidelines.

Among the changes, new training will be required for all members of the FHP, and clarifications about a ban on quotas will be included in job descriptions and performance expectations for supervisors.

FHP Director Gene Spaulding, in a letter Wednesday to Brown outlining the suspension, noted Brown sent email to subordinate commanders July 28 “encouraging 2 citations per hour” from troopers working the Statewide Overtime Action Response program meant to curb speeders.

“Following a review, it was discovered that other supervisors under your command forwarded similar directives and, as we had previously discussed, it is not appropriate to request that a trooper write a specific number of citations,” the director wrote.

Besides Brown’s suspension, an FHP release noted that an early retirement request from Lt. Col. Michael Thomas — submitted Monday — was accepted and that Spaulding and Terry Rhodes, executive director of the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, have discussed the ban on quotas with all command staff. Thomas, the second-highest ranking officer in the FHP and a 30-year veteran, had admitted he wrote email in May urging troopers to write at least two tickets per hour.