344               Vetoes

STATE POLICE

February 27, 1952
Honorable John C. Luber
Speaker of the House of Delegates
State House
Annapolis, Maryland

Dear Mr. Speaker:

House Bill 24¹ provides for transfer of the expense of the
State Police as a charge upon special funds accruing from
motor vehicle revenues to a charge upon the general fund
revenues of the state. The proposed legislation is both
unrealistic and unwise. It ignores completely the financial
and historical background of the State Police Department
and of legislation as to distribution of motor vehicle reve-
nues. Until 1935, the State Police were actually a part of
the Department of Motor Vehicles, and their progress to
status as a separate department merely recognized the in-
creasing burden of highway and traffic patrol, and the neces-
sity for co-ordinated enforcement of the motor vehicle code
and safety on the highways. With slight variance the work
of the Department has continuously been primarily that of
highway patrol. Most recent figures for the past several
years indicate that approximately 94% of the arrests made
by state police are for highway violations, and that of the
remaining 6% of arrests, about three fourths of them are
for violations committed in the presence of state police
patrolling the highways. Thus more than 98% of the per-
formance of the state police is directly connected with high-
way patrol. Traditionally and properly, the policing of the
local subdivisions remains a matter for local control, with
use of state police only in extreme or unusual emergencies,
which all of us know to be rare.

The history of financial legislation inseparably connected
with the problem should be well known to most legislators.
Until 1947, the work of the state police in patrolling the
highways was always accepted as a charge on motor vehicle
revenues.

The Maryland Commission on Distribution of Tax Reve-
nues, in presenting its report, familiarly known as the
"Sherbow Report" to the 1947 Legislature, recommended
continuance of the State Police as a charge on motor vehicle
revenues. This was part of a comprehensive review of state
revenues and expenditures, with suggested revisions of state
revenues. The report considered the distribution of high-
way user taxes and motor vehicle revenues existing in 1947.
A conglomeration of methods existed for distribution of

¹ This veto was sustained by the Senate on March 4, 1951.