Bredesen suggests reducing appointees at Highway Patrol
Allegations of political favoritism and mismanagement at the patrol and the state Department of Safety culminated in the resignation of three top officials last week.
One way to make the patrol more efficient may be to return captains at the patrol to the civil service, rather than have them continue to be politically appointed, Bredesen said.
“Let’s just have more professional positions in there, where people can have their say and some protection against political interference,” he said.
It is unlikely that proposals for changing the Department of Safety will be made during the special legislative session scheduled to begin Jan. 10, Bredesen said. An analysis by security consultant Kroll Inc. is not expected to be completed until the end of next month.
Administration officials announced the contract with Kroll on Tuesday, citing the urgency in overhauling the highway patrol as a reason for bypassing the state’s competitive bidding process.
The Tennessean reported in Wednesday’s editions that a Kroll official, Michael Shmerling, and his wife had donated $10,000 to Bredesen’s 2002 campaign for governor, and another $2,500 in January 2004.
A Kroll spokeswoman told the newspaper that Shmerling was the firm’s “senior person in Nashville.” But Shmerling told The Associated Press late Wednesday that he left the company in August.
Shmerling said he is still being paid under a severance agreement but his contacts with Kroll are minimal.
“I have not been a stockholder of Kroll in over a year,” he said.
Kroll is a subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan Cos., the nation’s largest insurance brokerage based in New York. Another Marsh & McLennan unit, Mercer Human Resource Consulting, has also done work for the state.